


A Study in Black and White

by Loopy456



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Apartheid, Gen, Noughts and Crosses, Racism, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loopy456/pseuds/Loopy456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where light-skinned noughts are looked down on and repressed by the ruling dark-skinned Crosses, Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes find different ways to fight the oppression. Slavery may have been abolished, but there is still a long way to go and many battles are yet to be fought before equality is a reality.</p><p>Good and bad and right and wrong are as plain as black and white, and in this world there are no shades of grey.</p><p>
  <b>AUTHOR'S NOTE - I understand that this is an emotive topic and some people may be uneasy with the concept. I have done my utmost to deal with the issues as sensitively as possible, and please be reassured that it is very much not the case of the side of the angels versus the side of the devil.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Noughts and Crosses’ is a truly excellent series of books written for teenagers by Malorie Blackman. The books are set in a modern, 21st Century world of apartheid with racial segregation turned on its head - the white native Europeans (the noughts) are oppressed and were previously enslaved by dark-skinned native Africans (the Crosses). The books are actually set on an alternate Earth where the supercontinent Pangaea had not broken up when modern humans evolved, so a lack of barriers to trade and communications allowed the native African population to develop much more than the native Europeans. I have not kept this detail in this fic, but have simply transplanted the context straight into the geographical world that we (and Sherlock, John and Mycroft) know today.
> 
> The characters of ‘Noughts and Crosses’ aren’t in this fic - I have just borrowed the world that they inhabit. You therefore don’t need to have read the books in order to understand anything of what’s going on, although if you have read them then I should probably inform you that, despite retaining the name, I have made my version of the Liberation Militia quite a bit less extremist. They are not, however, necessarily opposed to a bomb threat or two.
> 
> In this fic, Sherlock, Mycroft and John are noughts, meaning that they are the native Europeans with pale skin that we know from both ACD and BBC canon. I could have made Sherlock and Mycroft part of the ruling class by altering their race, as this social status would be much more fitting with ACD canon, but this is a story about them (and John) reacting to oppression, and the different ways they chose to go about fighting it. This is not, in many places, a happy story but it does have a satisfactory ending.
> 
> Trigger warnings for appalling racism, mentions of slavery and suicide and (not too graphic) descriptions of violence, terrorism and murder. None of the racist opinions expressed by any of the characters in this fic represent my own views in any way.

Sherlock Holmes was three years old when he realised what it meant to be a nought. He was in the park - if it could actually be called a park - with Mycroft when a Cross boy, perhaps five years old, ran in to him as he was collecting leaves and knocked him flat on his back.

In all the shouting that followed, all that Sherlock registered was that the Cross boy was helped up, he was left on the ground and that Mycroft received a slap to the face from the mother of the Cross boy for ‘failing to control his filthy ruffian of a brother’. Having made contact with Mycroft’s face, the woman then scrubbed her hands furiously against her trousers before taking her son’s hand and leading him away. 

Mycroft was silent on the way home, but he held onto Sherlock’s hand extra hard and Sherlock, for once, did not protest.

Sherlock Holmes was six when he started school, a whole two years later than his Cross counterparts were obliged to. With his neighbourhood being very close to a Cross neighbourhood, he saw the Cross school on his way.

‘That school looks nicer,’ he said, pointing as he dragged his shoes with their peeling soles along the cracked pavement.

‘Yes,’ Mycroft, who was escorting him, agreed. And then, ‘Walk properly please, Sherlock. You’re not some kind of street urchin.’

‘I bet the people at that school think I am,’ Sherlock said, looking a little wistfully through the fence that marked the dividing line between the nought and Cross neighbourhoods.

Mycroft did not reply. There was nothing to say.

Sherlock Holmes was seven and a half when he heard his older brother break down for the first (and last) time in his life.

‘But please,’ Mycroft pleaded with their parents, while Sherlock crouched at the top of the stairs and peeped through the banisters anxiously. ‘Please. I want to go to school. It doesn’t even have to be a good school. There must be a way. Please.’

‘You’re too old,’ their mother sighed wearily. ‘Come on, Mycroft, you know this. There’s nothing we can do.’

‘You could bribe a school,’ Mycroft said desperately. ‘Money talks, you know that.’

‘Money we don’t have, son,’ their father reminded him. ‘You’re getting ideas above your station, above our station.’

‘I ain’t worse than any Cross,’ Mycroft spat, his carefully honed grammar failing him in his anger. 

From his position on the landing, Sherlock was almost positive he heard a muffled sob before Mycroft stormed out of the living room and up the stairs, falling over Sherlock on the way to their room.

Sherlock Holmes was eleven when he came home from his new secondary school and declared it an utter waste of time.

‘There’s nothing there,’ he announced, slamming the school bag which had been previously been Mycroft’s onto the floor. ‘There are forty kids in a class and no books in the library and no equipment in the science labs and the teachers are quite useless.’

‘Well, that’s because nought teachers aren’t allowed the same training as Cross teachers,’ his mother explained, as if it made perfect sense.

‘I know that, obviously,’ Sherlock sneered. ‘But they’re all idiots anyway. It was beyond boring.’

‘Try and behave yourself,’ his mother implored him anxiously.

He lasted two months before blowing something up. They would have chucked him out, but there was nowhere else for him to go.

Sherlock Holmes was twelve when his brother first spoke out loud the promise that Sherlock knew he’d made a long time ago, on the way home from the park when Sherlock was three.

‘It won’t be like this for you,’ Mycroft vowed. ‘I promise it won’t. I’ll change it for you. You’ll be able to stay at school past fourteen. You’ll be able to go to a good school, a really good one, with lots of chemistry equipment and tonnes of books. I don’t know how quickly I can make it happen so you might have to leave for a bit and then go back, but it will happen, it will. Everything will be better in the end, I promise.’

‘I don’t want that,’ Sherlock replied.

Mycroft had just smiled. In the morning, he was gone.

Mycroft Holmes was nineteen when he went to London.

Mycroft Holmes was nineteen when he realised just how difficult it might be to keep the promise he had given his brother.

Mycroft Holmes was nineteen when he realised just how mild the racism was at home compared to the racism in London.

Mycroft Holmes was nineteen when he told himself again and again and again that he couldn’t let his brother down.

Mycroft Holmes was nineteen when he curled up on a shockingly thin mattress under a shockingly thin blanket in the most squalid excuse for a boarding house he’d ever seen, and thought harder than he’d ever thought in his life.

Mycroft Holmes was twenty-three when he finally allowed himself to acknowledge that it might take him a very, very long to time to make good that promise he’d made Sherlock, all those years ago.


	2. My Brother's Footprints

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the first proper chapter. Please enjoy.
> 
> I suppose the other thing I wanted to say is that this fic covers quite a large number of years, and by the time we reach the present day you’ll have realised that John, Sherlock and Mycroft are about six or seven years younger in this than they are in BBC canon. I feel the need to say that this is deliberate and not because I-can’t-tell-how-old-people-are/I-don’t-know-how-old-Benedict-and-Martin-are-in-real-life. I’ve done it because I still want them to be relatively young at the end. You’ll see why eventually!

**August 2000**

Sherlock knows the history. He was taught it at school, when he could be bothered to actually turn up, and he hardly ever turned up because it was all dull and pointless, and no-one took the trouble to look for him and drag him to school because what was one more nought boy roaming the streets anyway?

Still, he knows the history. He knows about the centuries of oppression since the Crosses arrived in Europe. It started on the continent first, and as news filtered across the English Channel the noughts on this side of the water did all they could to keep the Crosses out of their country. It didn’t work, of course. The Crosses were more advanced, in technological, social and military terms, and they marched in with barely a battle needed. Several hundred years later and the noughts are still very much second class citizens, or third or even fourth class citizens, despite the fact that the only two classes are the noughts and the Crosses. This is the part of history that Sherlock knows the best. He lives it every day.

Sherlock burnt his history books the day he left school. Good riddance to that place. The only history books left in his room now are Mycroft’s, and there are dozens of them. Nothing on Mycroft’s side of the room has been touched even now, over four years since he last set foot in it. Goodness only knows they could do with the space. 

The Holmes family lives in a typical house for their rundown nought neighbourhood - two up, two down with a tiny bathroom crammed in between the bedrooms upstairs. The door from the street opens right into their living room. Sherlock’s mother still calls it the Holmes family home (or the Holmes Home as a little joke which no-one else, least of all Sherlock, ever appreciates) despite the fact that only Sherlock and her are left in it now. Mycroft walked out and left for London and they know very little of what he is doing there, although Sherlock has no doubt that his brother knows all about the mundane futility of his and their mother’s day to day lives. Their father, that’s another matter. He was shot three years ago, trying to apprehend a nought shoplifter. Of course, the (armed) authorities couldn’t comprehend that a nought wouldn’t be assisting another nought in committing the crime and shot them both dead from point blank range. 

Sherlock had found it hard to grieve an act that had been entirely expected his whole life. Well, maybe not that particular act, but he had known from a very young age that something like this was bound to end either his life, or the life of one of his family members. He would have been concerned for the lives of his friends too, if he’d ever had any. That was the last time Sherlock saw Mycroft, at their father’s funeral, but his brother’s side of the room has stayed the same. Sherlock has never quite known within himself whether it’s a shrine, a tribute, a message, a scorn, a longing, a memory or a hope, however forlorn, but he’s kept it like that just the same. His side of the room is as messy as a nought-on-Cross playground scuffle, but Mycroft’s is as pristine as it was when the boy (man?) himself lived there.

It’s to Mycroft’s side of the room that Sherlock ventures now, feeling like he is intruding even after all this time. There’s a specific chapter of a specific book that he wants to peruse.

It takes Sherlock a while to find the right book. There’s too much Cross history getting in his way. They learnt Cross history at school, too. The curriculum was far more than fifty per cent Cross history, despite it being a nought school. But then again, nought schools are there to teach the next generation of noughts to know their place, and what better way to do that than by showing them how unimportant their own pasts are compared to those of Crosses? Even Mycroft’s books, many of which claim to specifically focus on nought history, are riddled with the interference of Crosses. All books are checked by the government, of course, and anything which portrays Crosses in too bad a light is censored. So much for freedom of the press.

There are other books in Mycroft’s collection, too, illegal ones printed in secret by nought freedom groups. It’s in one of these that Sherlock finds what he wants. There’s much nothing in there that he doesn’t already know, following his careful but extensive internet searches in the library just two roads away, which is unbelievably poorly stocked but nevertheless provides an albeit dodgy but very much existent internet connection. He finds it somewhat reassuring to read the words anyway. He knows what he must do.

Sherlock drags the battered old holdall from under his bed and inspects it thoughtfully. Having barely ever left his neighbourhood before, let alone his home town, he doesn’t really know how best to go about packing away his things.

He manages it eventually, packing his clothes and a select couple of Mycroft’s books. He doesn’t take any personal items, because he doesn’t have any personal items. The only photograph in the room is the one on Mycroft’s bedside table and he’s not taking that. He’s never seen the point of having photos in his room - he knows what his family looks like - and anyway, this is more than made up for downstairs.

Downstairs. It’s time to tell his mother.

He lingers a lot longer than he normally would as he drags his bag out of his room and down the narrow stairs that run along the side of their rented house. There is a procession of photos up the stairs; him and Mycroft aging with each step. He charts the growth and retreat of his hair periodically throughout the years, and sees his scowl become more engrained with every photograph. Mycroft doesn’t seem to change - it’s as if he popped into existence as a middle aged baby and stayed in middle age permanently, regardless of how many years he’d been on Earth. They made a handsome pair as children, him and Mycroft. Children anyone would be proud of, if only their skin was darker.

One particular photo near the top of the stairs catches his eye, and he stares at it for longer than any of the others. This is the last photo of him and Mycroft. It may well remain the last photo of him and Mycroft. It was taken over a year before Mycroft left, on Sherlock’s first day of secondary school. Sherlock is dressed in Mycroft’s old school uniform, the shirt of which is much too broad across the shoulders and hangs down a little too far past his waistband. Someone, probably their mother, has obviously had an attempt at Sherlock’s hair with a comb, unsuccessfully of course - his curls are as unruly as ever and he remembers strongly resisting a start-of-term haircut. 

‘I shan’t be going very much,’ eleven-year-old Sherlock had announced in no uncertain terms. ‘And haircuts are expensive. Don’t waste your money.’

Even Mycroft had been unable to persuade him.

Sherlock contemplates the photograph for a while longer. His hair is cut shorter now, for ease of management, but he recognises the surly expression well enough. It’s the one which glares back at him out of the mirror every morning. Maybe it’s this realisation, fresh by virtue of the length of time since he last looked at this picture, which makes him lift the frame off the wall and extract the second photo carefully stored in the back.

The second photograph was clearly staged as the first one was, with Mycroft’s arm slung carelessly but oh-so-protectively around his younger brother’s shoulders, but the composition of it has been sabotaged by way of the actions of one of its subjects.

In the fraction of a second before their father pressed the button to immortalise the occasion, Mycroft’s arm slipped down from Sherlock’s shoulder and his fingers dug into Sherlock’s sides, tickling him. The moment is captured perfectly. The shock is clear on Sherlock’s face, but it’s mostly obscured by pure, innocent laughter. Mycroft is laughing too, delighted at accomplishing what was difficult for him even then and getting one up on his younger brother. Sherlock, his face angled perfectly so that his expression is beaming into the camera, is in the process of doubling over, but he’s not straining away from Mycroft’s merciless hands. Instead, he’s leaning into his arms and tucking himself into his brother’s body to hide.

Sherlock remembers the moment as perfectly as if his father had been wielding a video camera, unheard of for a nought family in those days, rather than the battered old second-hand family Kodak. His mother had laughed, his father had laughed, Mycroft had laughed and Sherlock had pulled his scowl back into place as quickly as possible. He and Mycroft had then been rearranged in their original positions for the proper photograph to be taken and he had been sent on his way to school. Mycroft had accompanied him as his parents, quite rightly, hadn’t trusted him to go if sent alone.

Frowning slightly more than normal, Sherlock puts the frame to rights again and hangs it back on the wall. Sentimental nonsense. He doesn’t know why his mother has kept it.

Sighing, Sherlock continues on his journey down stairs, his bag bumping behind him with every step. At the very bottom of the stairs is the first ever photograph taken of him and Mycroft. He cannot be more than a few days old, wrapped up in some kind of abomination of a patchwork blanket and clasped ever so gently in Mycroft’s arms. Sherlock is, for once, not crying - he has been informed on many occasions that he was a tricky baby - and Mycroft is gazing down at him with a strange expression on his face. This is my brother, says that expression. This is my brother, and I will always look after him. Ha.

‘Sherlock,’ a voice calls through from the kitchen. ‘Sherlock, is that you?’

Sherlock rolls his eyes. Who else would it be?

His mother comes through from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She takes one look at Sherlock’s face and one look at his bag and bursts into tears.

‘I knew this day was coming,’ she sobs. ‘I just hoped it wasn’t coming quite so soon.’

Sherlock just stands there, staring idiotically. He doesn’t know what to do. He cannot deal with his mother when she’s like this - that’s always been Mycroft’s job. Sherlock needs her as he remembers her from early on in his childhood - strong, proud and determined. Determined that life would be better for her boys then it was for her. Sherlock can chart the progression of his mother’s drooping under a lack of progress and a lack of hope for progress as easily as if there were photos up the stairs of that too. 

‘It’ll be okay, Mummy,’ says Sherlock awkwardly, dredging up the long-forgotten childhood name in an attempt to put his mother at ease.

His mother refuses to be comforted.

‘I can’t lose you all,’ she says. ‘I can’t.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Sherlock says stiffly. ‘You’re not losing me.’

‘That’s what Mycroft said,’ his mother sniffs, dabbing at her eyes uselessly. ‘Stay here and look after your old mum, Sherlock.’

‘You let Mycroft go,’ Sherlock says, his own eyes narrowed but quite dry.

‘Mycroft had a plan,’ his mother says tearfully. ‘He was going to London. He was going to do things the right way. Change the government, that sort of thing. This country is rotten to its very core and Mycroft knew what to do to try and change it.’

‘How do you know I’m not going to help Mycroft?’ Sherlock asks, tapping his toe on the grubby carpet impatiently.

His mother just looks at him.

‘I know you, Sherlock Holmes,’ she says simply. ‘And I know exactly what you’re going to do, so don’t you dare lie to me about it.’

She always was the only person who could ever make Sherlock feel suitably chastised. He doesn’t know what to say.

‘I know I can’t stop you,’ his mother says. ‘Not in the end. But you’re only sixteen, Sherlock. You’re too young. Stay here a while. Maybe Mycroft’s law - ’

‘You’ve been hoping for Mycroft to pass that law for four years,’ Sherlock snaps. ‘It’s not going to happen in time for me. It’s too late.’

‘It’s never too late,’ his mother says desperately. ‘Sherlock. You’re clever. You could do so well. Just think about it.’

‘Do you imagine I don’t know this?’ Sherlock demands. ‘Of course I could do well. But I can’t. Because I am a nought. The word isn’t exactly a coincidence, is it? Nought by name and nought by nature, and seeing as Mycroft seems to be doing nothing but sitting on his fat arse, I’ll have to go and do something about it myself, won’t I?’

‘I’m sure he’s doing his best,’ their mother argues for her oldest son in his absence. 

‘Well maybe,’ Sherlock sneers, in a manner that suggests that he very much doubts it.

‘Sherlock,’ his mother pleads. ‘Not this. Anything but this. Please.’

‘What else do you suggest?’ asks Sherlock.

His mother is silent. There is no other option and she knows it.

‘I’ll let you know that I’m okay,’ Sherlock offers.

‘No you won’t,’ his mother says, smiling sadly. ‘Don’t you lie to me, my boy.’

Sherlock shuffles his feet on the carpet awkwardly.

‘I’ll be off then,’ he says. ‘Bye.’

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ his mother scolds him, taking two steps forward and seizing Sherlock around his waist. 

Sherlock lets himself be pulled into a hug. There’s really no point in fighting it. He pats his mother on the back uncomfortably until she lets go.

‘Look at you, you’re all skin and bone,’ his mother says, pulling back eventually. Her eyes are shining brightly with unshed tears. ‘And hair, of course. Take care of yourself, Lockie.’

Sherlock winces at the childhood nickname. He thought he’d put a stop to that when he was four.

‘I will,’ he says stiffly. ‘And, erm, you too.’

‘Try and behave yourself,’ she says, suddenly brisk and business-like. ‘Now be off with you, you’re making my living room look untidy.’

_I love you, Sherlock. Please come back to me._

‘I always behave myself,’ Sherlock informs her. ‘It’s not my fault that other people have different standards of behaviour.’

_I, erm, you too. I’ll do my best._

The door swings shut behind him. It slams with a sudden gust of wind. Sherlock doesn’t look back.

Walking down the path, Sherlock allows himself to acknowledge why his mother has kept that second photo hidden inside the frame for all these years. It’s possibly the only photo in existence of her boys, of her sons looking truly happy. Life as a nought wears you down, even as a child. After his third year, Sherlock rarely smiled at all.

Violet Holmes watches her younger son leave with a heavy heart. He could have been so brilliant, her brave boy, lovely despite his brusque manner and utter disregard for the rules. Both her boys could have been brilliant. If only they’d been born Cross.


	3. In the Criterion

**August 2000**

It’s as easy as he thought it would be. Sherlock meets his contact at the pre-arranged place, half an hour earlier than the pre-arranged time. A van trip of approximately two hours later, and he’s in. No more boredom, here he comes.

‘In there,’ his contact says simply, pointing towards a door. ‘Sit down and shut up until you’re needed, that’s the rule here. Your roommate will fill you in.’

Sherlock watches the retreating back of the rotund man whose name he has not managed to acquire. Not that that’s surprising, of course. What is slightly surprising is his ability to make a terrorist cell sound like a boarding school.

He pushes the door open.

A stocky nought teenager with sandy blond hair is crouched on what clearly passes for a bed, painstakingly dismantling a rifle. He looks up in interest when Sherlock enters.

‘Hello,’ he says, running a slightly oil stained hand through his hair. ‘I’d shake your hand but you might not appreciate it right now.’

Sherlock frowns by way of reply, and looks around.

‘You alright?’ the boy asks. ‘Had a long journey? I knew you were coming but I’m afraid I don’t know your name. It’s not like the bosses divulge that sort of information, I suppose. Are you coming in or not?’

At this, Sherlock takes one step forward and lets the heavy-duty door swing shut behind him.

‘That’s better,’ says his new roommate. ‘There’s an awful draught through here quite a lot of the time. It’s what you’d expect from an old farm building though, if you think about it. Are you sure you’re alright?’

‘Yes, fine,’ Sherlock replies impatiently, if only to try and get his companion to shut up.

As an experiment, it is not especially successful.

‘Well, that’s where you’ll sleep,’ the boy says, pointing unnecessarily. As if Sherlock hasn’t got eyes. ‘Are you really and truly okay? You’re very pale.’

‘I’m always this colour,’ Sherlock snaps. ‘Nought, remember?’

‘Yes, thanks for clarifying,’ says the boy, narrowing his eyes slightly. And then, ‘How old are you?’

Sherlock considers lying. There’s not much point. He may be tall but there’s very little of him in any other respect, apart from his hair.

‘Sixteen,’ he says grudgingly. _And don’t you dare judge me for it, as you’re not yet out of your teens yourself._

‘Bit young to be leaving home, isn’t it?’ the boy says lightly. 

Interesting, he thinks Sherlock’s lying. 

_Does he think I’m older or younger than I’m claiming to be?_

The boy looks Sherlock up and down briefly. 

_Younger._

He decides to deflect attention away.

‘Too young to become a terrorist you mean?’ he snips back.

‘Terrorist?’ the boy frowns disapprovingly.

_Strong moral compass. Interesting._

‘Got a word you prefer?’ Sherlock enquires, with his best imitation of politeness.

‘Well,’ says the boy. ‘I don’t know. Freedom fighter?’

‘Oh, how romantic,’ Sherlock snorts. ‘That’ll soothe your conscience when you blow up all those Crosses, won’t it?’

The boy’s frown intensifies. 

‘I don’t blow people up,’ he states firmly.

‘Well, not yet, obviously,’ Sherlock agrees. ‘You’ve hardly been in the Liberation Militia long enough to have graduated to blowing people up. How old are you anyway? Nineteen?’

‘How do you know that?’ the boy asks, eyebrows lifting in surprise. ‘People join a lot younger than me - just look at you - and just because I’m still in a training cell and I’ve got to share with the new boy doesn’t mean I haven’t been around for a while.’

‘You’d have been stripping that rifle a lot more confidently and effectively if you’d been in for longer than a month or two,’ Sherlock shrugs, indicating the pile of parts of the boy’s bed.

‘Hey, I’m getting better,’ the boy exclaims defensively. 

_Didn’t say you weren’t. And you’ll get better and more confident when you begin to teach me this evening._

‘Then there’s your boots,’ Sherlock says, nodding to the items in question at the foot of the bed.

‘My boots?’

‘New, but not brand new,’ Sherlock explains, indicating with his free hand. Somehow, he hasn’t got around to putting his bag down yet. ‘There’s a light layer of dust over them, and signs of where you’ve removed such dust before so you’ve been wearing them for at least a couple of weeks, but nothing too substantial so for no longer than a month and a half I’d say. The fact that the treads are not shiny but not too scuffed either reinforces this. The laces are still tied, and a little looser than you’d tie them on the first go so you’ve had them long enough for the leather to soften sufficiently for you to pull them both off and on without undoing the laces, but not for long enough for the laces to start to fray around the eyelets. Oh, and did you know that you’ve got a slightly weaker arch on your right foot than on your left?’

There is a short silence. The boy is studying his boots intently, trying to see evidence of what Sherlock’s just described.

‘How did I do?’ Sherlock asks.

‘Brilliantly,’ the boy grins suddenly, looking up at him. ‘That’s amazing. We could do with someone with your brains around here.’

‘And the age?’ Sherlock persists. ‘Your age? Nineteen?’

‘Eighteen,’ the boy corrects him. ‘But close enough. I’m John.’

He shoves the rifle parts in his lap onto the bed with the rest, scrubs his hand hard on his trousers and stands up, holding his hand out. He really is quite short.

‘Left handed,’ Sherlock mutters to himself, slowly offering his hand in return. He is overheard.

‘Anything you can’t tell me about myself?’ the boy, John, asks. Sherlock quickly decides that he rather likes the impressed tone of voice currently being directed at him. ‘Now come on. I’ve told you about me. Or rather, you’ve told me about me but it’s all the same. So, how old are you really?’

‘Sixteen,’ Sherlock repeats slowly.

‘You’re not sixteen,’ John laughs. ‘No way. You’re too… gangly.’

Sherlock says nothing. He is well aware of his own awkwardness, thank you very much. It’s most unfair that it has been afflicted upon him when Mycroft, the same height at the same age, got away Scot-free.

At Sherlock’s continued silence, John stops laughing.

‘Sixteen?’ he asks. ‘Is that your real age? Actually?’

Oh God, it’s going to be good when he tells him his name.

‘And what are you actually, twelve?’ Sherlock retorts.

‘Ha bloody ha,’ John shoots back. ‘Like I haven’t heard that one before. I went through the entirety of secondary school being called a dwarf.’

‘Is that better or worse than being called a giraffe?’ Sherlock wonders aloud.

Their eyes meet. They grin.

‘Name?’ John questions him. ‘Or am I going to have to call you Giraffe?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t, if I’m honest,’ Sherlock frowns. ‘Holmes. Sherlock Holmes.’

‘I’m sorry, what?’ John splutters. ‘Pull the other one. I know some people use pseudonyms in the LM but at least chose one that’s even moderately believable.’

‘Would you like to see a copy of my birth certificate?’ offers Sherlock.

‘Erm, no, it’s okay,’ John pulls himself together quickly. ‘But seriously, “Sherlock”? What were your parents _thinking_?’

‘I have a brother,’ Sherlock informs him. ‘Mycroft.’

‘Well,’ John says, biting down hard on his lip. ‘That’s lovely. It’s more imaginative than “John”, at any rate.’

‘Undeniably,’ Sherlock agrees.

‘Well, yes,’ John says. ‘Are you staying, then? Only if you are, you could probably put your bag down.’

Oh. Yes. Of course.

‘The beds could be better,’ John tells him. ‘But then again, they could be worse. No en suite, I’m afraid, but the bathroom is down the corridor. It’s shared by all cell members, so expect to have to queue. And learn to shave fast. Breakfast is whenever you get yelled for. Same for lunch. Same for dinner. Bedtime is when everything is done. Get as much sleep as you can because you never know when you might get your next kip. The entertainment consists of appalling jokes and the odd deck of cards. Oh, and there’s a radio too. Anything else you’d like to know?’

‘That all seems quite satisfactory,’ Sherlock says thoughtfully, pursing his lips.

‘Well then Holmes, Sherlock Holmes,’ says John, gesturing around the room with a sweeping arm movement. ‘Enjoy your stay, and welcome to the Criterion Cell.’

***

A couple of hours later, Sherlock is sorting through his few belongings when, from somewhere down the corridor, someone briefly smashes two metal pots together.

‘That’s dinner,’ John says unnecessarily, standing up from his bed with the reconstructed rifle and stretching awkwardly.

‘You go,’ Sherlock replies, once it’s clear that an answer is expected. ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’

‘There’ll not be much food left,’ John warns him. ‘You’ve can’t understand how quickly food can disappear here until you’ve seen it.’

‘I don’t eat much, anyway,’ Sherlock says absently. 

‘Ha,’ John snorts. ‘You’ll be singing from a different song sheet after a couple of days, trust me. I thought I didn’t eat much, now I’m sure I eat enough each day to keep a small village going for a week or two. Come on.’

‘I will eat,’ Sherlock says testily. ‘Just give me a moment. You go.’

He finishes flicking through the book he has in his hands and looks up at John, who is still standing there with his arms folded.

‘I said to go,’ Sherlock points out irritably. He doesn’t like feeling like he’s being scrutinised.

‘It’s okay, I’ll wait,’ John replies amiably. ‘I know what it’s like on your first evening. You’ll want a friend with you.’

Sherlock frowns as he opens the zip to a side pocket of his bag. A friend? He’s never needed a friend before. But then again, he’s never been in a situation quite like this before so he shouldn’t jump to conclusions without enough data.

Under John’s steady gaze, Sherlock actually finds himself moving a bit faster. Interesting. If it had been Mycroft, he would have gone as slowly as possible on purpose.

They make it to the room that John refers to as the mess - _military terminology, interesting_ \- five minutes late. As John predicted, there isn’t much food left.

‘Watson,’ says Sherlock’s contact cheerily, when they enter. Sherlock frowns, realising that John never told him his surname. ‘You need to be quicker off the mark, my friend. We’ve only saved you some stuff because it’s what’s-his-name’s first evening.’

‘Good of you,’ John quips back, handing over the assembled rifle casually. ‘I’ve done an alright job of it this time, just you look and see.’

‘Well it’s only taken you an age to learn how to do it, Johnny Boy,’ says the man sat next to Sherlock’s contact. Sherlock looks at him and puts his age at somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-three. Possibly only twenty, but unlikely.

‘I told you to quit it with that name,’ John growls back, but he’s grinning. He collapses into one of the mismatched chairs and indicates that Sherlock should do the same. ‘Pass me that dish, will you? I’m famished.’

‘You should have thought about that before you decided to come waltzing in late then!’

As he helps himself from the small amount of food left, Sherlock closes his ears to the continued banter going to around him and surveys the table critically. Along with his contact, who is sat at the head of the grubby little table, there are five other men and one woman in the room. 

The leader of the cell is clearly the man in the green jacket sat halfway along the opposite side of the table. Sherlock looks at him carefully from underneath his eyelashes as he bends over his plate silently. The strong but silent type, clearly. Rarely speaks, but when he does his tone is authoritative. Commands respect. Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. From the callous on his trigger finger, he’s obviously not opposed to getting involved with the dirty work, so to speak. Either that or he’s been in the LM from a very young age. It’s difficult to tell without more data.

It takes Sherlock several moments to realise he’s being addressed. When he looks up, he realises that the man he has been scrutinising for the past few minutes is staring at him right back.

‘So, new boy,’ the man who called John “Johnny Boy” is also staring at him, but much more openly. ‘What’s your name then?’

Sherlock remembers how John was addressed when they enter the room.

‘Holmes,’ he answers briefly, his voice low.

‘Murray,’ the man says in return, nodding to him. ‘Bill Murray. Got a first name, Holmes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Gonna share it with us?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I did,’ Sherlock says quietly. He looks round. Next to him, John is grinning.

‘He’s right you know, Kid Billy,’ he puts in. The nicknaming is evidently not a one-way thing.

Sherlock looks back to his food and concentrates on eating. He doesn’t speak for the rest of the meal.

***

‘What brought you here, then?’

A week after Sherlock’s arrival finds Sherlock and John squatting on the floor of their room, stripping down rifles yet again. Sherlock is getting better and more thorough, and his nimble fingers, a remnant of his violin lessons, are useful for the job. Much to his annoyance, John is still faster.

‘What do you mean?’ Sherlock frowns, looking up from his work.

‘Well, no-one joins the LM on a whim,’ John says. ‘You must have a reason.’

‘Why does anyone join the Liberation Militia?’ asks Sherlock, reaching for his rag.

‘Oh, you’d be surprised at the number of different reasons I’ve heard,’ John laughs. ‘Are you here for someone? Most folk are, one way or another.’

‘Someone?’

‘Your mum, your dad, your great-granny, your illegitimate sprog,’ John ticks them off on his fingers, balancing the butt of the rifle precariously on his knee.

‘Not me,’ Sherlock shrugs, eying the John’s wobbling rifle keenly.

‘Oh come on,’ John presses him. ‘There must be someone, however indirectly.’

‘I’m here for myself,’ Sherlock says smoothly, dropping his eyes back to his own work when John steadies his rifle.

_I get bored. There’s nothing to do with your life if you’re a nought. Why not join a well-known terrorist organisation and try, however futilely, to change the world?_

‘I have a sister,’ John offers. ‘A sister who does nothing to dispel the stereotype that all noughts are brainless, promiscuous drunks but there we go. She’s my sister all the same.’

‘And I have a brother who dispels all of those stereotypes but not in a good way,’ Sherlock replies. ‘But again, he is not why I am here.’

‘How can dispelling those stereotypes be anything but a good thing?’ John wonders aloud. Sensing that he is not going to get a response, he moves on to questioning the second part of Sherlock’s sentence. ‘Is this the one with the equally outlandish name? Older brother is he? Not got any protective instincts over him?’

‘Older by seven years, and no,’ Sherlock says shortly.

‘Seven years?’ John echoes. ‘Whew. Protective instincts must go the other way then. What does he do?’

‘Mycroft does many things,’ Sherlock replies, his eyes narrowed. ‘I know nothing about all but a few of them, and I care about even fewer. I have my suspicions, though, and my suspicions are always right.’

‘Always?’ John laughs. ‘That’s a bit cocky, isn’t it?’

‘It’s true,’ Sherlock says simply, frowning.

‘Right,’ John says, backtracking quickly. ‘Okay. How come you don’t know what he does, though? Has he left home?’

‘Something like that,’ replies Sherlock vaguely. ‘I haven’t seen him since my father died.’

Why is he telling John this?

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ John says instantly, looking at Sherlock with something soft in his eyes.

‘Don’t be,’ shrugs Sherlock, a little perplexed. ‘It wasn’t your fault, was it?’

‘Well, no,’ John concedes with a shrug of his own. ‘It’s just that my father’s dead too, so I know what it’s like.’

Sherlock considers, his head tipped to one side thoughtfully.

‘Natural causes, at least ten years ago?’ he queries after a moment.

‘Yep.’

John’s lips pop at the end of the word. He doesn’t look angry or upset. Sherlock continues.

‘Hence why you’ve always felt more protective over your sister than you might otherwise have done,’ Sherlock decides. ‘You’re quite close in age?’

‘Close enough that people often think we’re twins,’ John confirms, a small smile on his face. ‘You’re really good at this, you know. You could make a fortune at the circus by using all the clues you get from people to predict their futures.’

Sherlock raises one eyebrow. People actually pay for that rubbish? The world is more idiotic than he thought, and that’s saying something.

‘So,’ John is saying. ‘Your father died and your brother left, leaving you without any contact. I get it.’

‘Get what?’ Sherlock frowns.

‘Why you’re here,’ John nods, a knowing expression on his face. ‘Your father dies and your brother - your only ally - leaves and you feel abandoned. Your mother is too busy trying to cope with her grief at your father’s death and your brother’s departure to support you, so you remain feeling abandoned, and the fact that your brother doesn’t contact you at all makes it even worse. Is this you trying to get his attention?’

‘No,’ Sherlock snaps. ‘This is me trying to secure my right to act how I wish, as Crosses can, and not risk retribution for it.’

He cannot allow himself to acknowledge that there might be another reason. Bloody John Watson.


	4. The British Government

**September 2000**

Mycroft Holmes rips off his tie, sits back in his chair and sighs. He’s tired, but then again he’s always tired. Changing the country bit by bit is not an easy prospect for anyone, especially a nought barely into his mid-twenties. The only way this could be any harder for him is if he were a woman as well, as then all the dormant sexism from cantankerous old Cross men in the Cabinet would come cheerfully bursting forth.

Sighing again, Mycroft shuffles some of the papers on his desk. His office is not much bigger than a cupboard, the furniture is wobbly and, in some cases, actually falling apart and the only natural light source comes from a skylight roughly the same size as a postage stamp, but it’s his office. He, Mycroft Holmes, a nought, has an office within the parliamentary buildings. That can only be a sign of how far things have come. And of how far they’ve got to go.

Change has been in the offing for years, Mycroft knew that as a teenager back at home, but a few old stick-in-the-mud Crosses who fondly remembered the slave days were holding everything back. Several of them still are, although one particularly foul old codger finally had the decency to pop his clogs a year and a half ago last week. 

It’s entirely thanks to this happy event that the bill Mycroft has clutched in his hand at this moment is even in existence at all. The bill that, should it be passed, will give all nought children the right to stay in education up until the age of eighteen, just like their Cross counterparts. The bill that is referred to privately in Mycroft’s head as “Sherlock’s Bill”. He knows he’s late. He knows that he’s two years too late, and God only knows what Sherlock will have got up to in those two years, but he can go back. Sherlock can do what Mycroft couldn’t and go back to school and learn. Mycroft knows what his brother’s thirsty little brain is like. Once Sherlock’s Bill is passed, then learning will be a reality for him again.

Mycroft misses his brother. Well, he doesn’t really miss the surly, sulky teenager he remembers from his father’s funeral, but he misses the wide-eyed, curly-haired little boy who was so full of promise, but who the world had written off before he’d taken his first breath just because he was a nought. And when Mycroft met his brother, at home just a few hours after he’d been born because noughts weren’t allowed to stay overnight in maternity hospitals at the time, he had sworn, at the age of not-quite seven, that he would protect his brother from everything he’d already seen of the world, and all the things that he hadn’t seen yet but knew were to come. 

So here he is, alone in London for the last four years, making good on all his promises. Sherlock, bright and inquisitive and hungry for stimulation, cannot live in a world that regards him as a second-class citizen, Mycroft is sure of that. He won’t let Sherlock be crushed by the weariness that is life as a nought in the United Kingdom, like he has seen happen to his mother over the years. That can’t happen. It cannot.

A knock at the door interrupts Mycroft’s reminiscences.

‘Holmes,’ says the middle-aged Cross who sticks his head around the door. ‘Meeting, right now. Bring the bill. Let’s go.’

‘You didn’t say so, Sir,’ Mycroft answers, leaping to his feet as best he can in the cramped quarters and hurriedly retying his tie.

‘Can’t tell you things I don’t know about in advance, Holmes,’ his boss says, leaving the door open as Mycroft pulls on his suit jacket, picks up the bill and follows him into the corridor.

His manner is brusque but not unkind. First impressions of him are perhaps misleading because Mycroft knows that his boss is one of the staunchest supporters of nought rights in the whole damn government. And Mycroft should know. He chose to work for him after all, four years ago. He’d researched him online before coming to London and sought him out upon his arrival. Not many government ministers would be reluctant to take on a boy not yet out of his teens, prepared to work for his keep, and James Millfield wasn’t one of them.

‘You’re to stay silent, do you hear me?’ Millfield says as they march along the corridor. ‘Stand behind me and say nothing. I’ll deal with it.’

‘Yes Sir,’ Mycroft says respectfully. 

He knows his place, for now. Stand in the corner, bite your tongue, say nothing, hide your anger, pretend that you can’t hear the politicians in the room arguing about your fellow noughts like you’re not present, pretend that some of them have actually noticed that you’re there in the first place.

To a lot of Crosses, noughts are invisible. The derogatory name for noughts isn’t ‘blankers’ for nothing. Mycroft has been walked straight into on more than one occasion, not necessarily out of spite but because he simply wasn’t spotted. And of course, whenever this occurs, it’s all his fault.

When they arrive at the meeting room, a quick glance around tells Mycroft that, once again, he’s going to be the only nought in the room, unless a serving boy or girl brings in a tea trolley part of the way through. They’re almost guaranteed to be a nought. As expected, he is barely acknowledged. Mycroft is intelligent enough to know that that would happen to anyone in his particularly lowly position, nought or Cross, but he cannot help but wonder all the same. Of course, if he were a Cross, he’d have progressed well beyond the point of a glorified skivvy by now. 

At least, that’s all he is to the outside world. Millfield is a canny man and he spotted Mycroft’s potential soon enough. The bill currently being discussed is almost entirely of Mycroft’s own composition. It was certainly his idea, which he then channelled through Millfield, who has enough friends and allies to make the bill a reality. Whether it can be passed or not remains to be seen.

Having not been briefed, Mycroft initially has no idea what the meeting is about. It only takes a couple of sentences for him to realise that all that is being debated is the final wording of the bill. It gives him a pang low in his midriff to hear politicians of varying levels of eminence altering his careful wording to phrases far less appropriate and, often, far less literate.

‘I don’t like this section,’ one of the Crosses around the table is saying, pointing out one of Mycroft’s very favourite bits of phrasing. He worked hard on that. ‘It sounds too pushy. We need to take it down a few notches.’

Millfield looks up from the table and turns to briefly catch Mycroft’s eye. He knows what his underling is thinking. Mycroft, for his part, stays silent. It’s more than his job’s worth to speak up, perhaps more than his life is worth.

‘What would you recommend, Stan?’ Millfield is saying, having turned back to the discussion.

‘Something less aggressive,’ is the reply. ‘We don’t want to sound too forceful. After all, this is a delicate line we’re walking. There are a lot of back-benchers who could go either way and the wording could definitely swing it one way or the other.’

Mycroft knows this. That’s why he chose that exact wording. Forceful, yes, but still polite. And most importantly, leading. In politics, it’s all about leading people to the answer you want them to give without them knowing that you’re doing it. Mycroft is already a master at it. A natural, as Millfield laughed one afternoon as they worked on the bill.

‘Get a spray tan, Holmes, and you’re golden,’ he said, and then laughed uproariously at his own unintentional pun.

Mycroft, for his part, had managed a thin smile.

Now, listening to Crosses, arrogant for all their support of nought rights, slowly but surely tearing apart all his hard work and putting it back together in a way that can be described as slapdash at best, it takes all of Mycroft’s carefully garnered restraint to stay calm and quiet in the corner. Only the slight twitch in his left cheek gives anything away, but of course no-one is looking.

‘There,’ one of the Crosses says, sometime later. ‘Are we all in agreement?’

Mycroft isn’t, but no-one cares about him.

‘Certainly,’ says the man to his left. ‘James?’

‘It seems satisfactory,’ replies Millfield carefully, knowing what is going on in Mycroft’s head.

‘Do you think it stands a chance of being passed?’ asks the first man tentatively.

Mycroft doesn’t know why that man, whose name he cannot recall at present, is so nervous - it’s not like it’s his children who will be affected by it. He knows he’s being unfair, that these men do actually care, but sometimes it’s hard to remind himself of that when he knows they’ve never been too damn scared to leave their neighbourhood in case they’re lynched on the way to buy a loaf of bread.

‘Yes,’ Millfield is saying firmly. ‘It stands an excellent chance. The timing is right - there hasn’t been any trouble for months and sympathy for nought rights is at an all-time high according to the opinion poll in the Independent last week. That will be reflected in the voting, I’m sure of it.’

‘Where do you think the trickiest areas will be?’ the man directly opposite Millfield enquires.

‘London itself is traditionally tough,’ Millfield answers. Mycroft nods imperceptibly behind him. He briefed Millfield on this the previous afternoon. ‘But feeling here tends to run with feeling nationally, so things should go better than we might otherwise expect. In a situation like this, members know how important it is that they accurately represent their constituents’ views on the matter.’

‘Where are the definite “against” voters going to come from then?’ asks another man, who has said very little throughout the whole meeting.

‘The north-west is pretty much a lost cause at this time,’ Millfield says in a resigned manner. ‘There’s talk of reopening some of the mines and no-one up there wants to risk losing their primary workforce if that happens. Nought boys just out of school make up their traditional manpower, and the prospect of even a small percentage of those boys staying on in education until sixteen, or maybe even eighteen, is not an attractive one for them.’

There is a short period of contemplative silence.

‘It’s a large region,’ says the man opposite Millfield. ‘It’ll have a big impact.’

‘There’s nothing we can do about,’ puts in somebody else, whose face Mycroft cannot see. ‘It’s risky, but I think we can be reasonably confident. This bill stands a very good chance of being passed.’

‘We can only hope and pray,’ Millfield agrees. ‘There is a lot riding on this, I don’t mind admitting it. If this bill is passed, it could pave the way for a lot of new legislation over the next few years. This is the first major piece of nought legislation to be drafted since the rush of bills that were passed after the abolition. That was fifty years ago now, and we need to set a positive precedent.’

‘It’s time,’ says the first man who spoke. ‘This has been a long time coming, and we all know why. Certain, ah, _outspoken_ members of parliament have less influence now and we can only hope that that will prove to be sufficient.’

‘Indeed,’ Millfield nods. ‘Is that all, gentlemen?’

Chairs are pushed back, jackets pulled on and papers gathered up as the men take their leave. As they exit, Mycroft, standing at the door, is mostly ignored. He knows what is expected of him and he holds the door open for them to pass through. They can hardly fail to see him, but very few of them even nod at him.

Of course, all of these men are supporters of nought rights, which is why they’re here, so they don’t ignore him simply because he’s a nought. They ignore him because he’s the lowliest of assistants, not even on any kind of official payroll. He doubts that half of them even know his name. No, they may not decline to acknowledge his presence, or even his existence, because he is a nought, but they do it because he’s not important enough to make the acquaintance of, and the reason that he is not important enough to make the acquaintance of is because he’s a nought, so it all comes back to the same thing in the end. It’s a casual racism that they’re not even aware of possessing, but it’s there all the same.

‘Holmes,’ says one man, Fleming, interrupting Mycroft’s cheerless thoughts. 

Mycroft nods respectfully back to him.

‘Sir,’ he says.

He’s always liked Fleming. The man does not exactly get on with Mycroft’s boss, but he has always been kind to Mycroft in spite of this. He is one of the few people, even amongst nought supporters, to look at Mycroft and see the man, not the skin colour. Mycroft has a great deal of respect for that. He knows that he himself is often guilty of seeing only Crosses, not people, and has been making an active effort of late to put this right.

‘I trust you are keeping well,’ Fleming says to him, pausing in the doorway.

‘Yes, Sir,’ Mycroft says automatically, wondering if Fleming would agree with that assessment if he saw just where Mycroft lives. ‘Very well. And yourself?’

‘Oh passably, passably,’ Fleming muses, flicking absentmindedly through his sheaf of paper.

Mycroft pauses. It’s rare enough for him to be engaged in conversation by somebody other than Millfield that when the occasion arises he is loath to let it slip by so inconsequentially. He likes people to remember who he is, for the right reasons.

‘And how is your granddaughter, Sir?’ he enquires politely. ‘Alice, is it?’

‘Ah, she’s just wonderful, just wonderful,’ the man’s face softens as much as a politician’s ever does. ‘Good of you to remember, Holmes.’

‘It’s not a problem, Sir.’

‘You’re a spark, Holmes, and no mistake,’ Fleming says thoughtfully, a shrewd expression on his face as he looks Mycroft up and down. ‘It’s a pity…’

He trails off. Mycroft can finish the rest of his sentence of for him, though.

_It’s a pity you were born a nought, Holmes._

He opts for respectful confusion.

‘I’m not entirely sure what you mean, Sir,’ he says, frowning politely.

‘No,’ Fleming replies vaguely. ‘No. Well, I must be off, Holmes. I’ve got a pile of things to do the size of which you wouldn’t believe. Be grateful you’re not me, eh?’

‘Yes, Sir,’ Mycroft says obediently as Fleming strides off along the corridor.

Millfield and Mycroft are now alone in the room. Millfield has been watching the whole exchange with interest.

‘Ready, Sir?’ Mycroft asks, meeting his boss’ steady gaze.

‘Hmm,’ is Millfield’s reply.

They set off down the corridor, Mycroft one pace behind his boss and slightly to his left at all times. It is his habitual position in life. It has been for years.

‘Sir,’ he says hesitantly, as they reach Millfield’s office. ‘Do you think that the bill will be passed, Sir?’

Millfield looks at Mycroft through narrowed eyes as he unlocks his door and ushers Mycroft inside. Only when the door has swung shut behind him does he speak.

‘I do, Holmes,’ he says. ‘At least, I bloody hope so. You’ve worked hard on it. We’ll know in a month or two, at any rate.’

Mycroft flushes. He is not used to having his hard work openly acknowledged.

‘Call it a labour of love, Sir,’ he says eventually, his eyes lowered modestly.

‘That brother of yours?’ Millfield asks, shrugging off his suit jacket. Mycroft inclines his head. ‘You should let him know. Get in contact and tell him. Don’t get his hopes up, mind, but at least let him know of the possibility.’

‘I don’t know, Sir,’ Mycroft hesitates. ‘I don’t speak to my family much.’

‘I know that and I know your reasons for it, but family is all we have in the end, Holmes,’ says Millfield, his eyes falling automatically to the photograph on his desk. Mycroft knows it well. The three little boys appear to be quite charming in their own, childlike way.

‘Yes, Sir,’ he says.

‘Even we heartless bastards in government can’t forget it,’ Millfield gives a bark of laughter.

‘I don’t think you’re a heartless bastard, Sir,’ Mycroft says. Four years of close work with his boss have enabled him to have the confidence to say such things and the rapport to get away with them.

‘Well, we can’t all be,’ Millfield says, still chuckling. He then turns suddenly serious. ‘Fleming was right you know, Holmes, it is a pity. You would make an excellent politician. Perhaps one day, eh?’

Mycroft nods respectfully to Millfield and takes his leave. He knows that he would be a great politician. He doesn’t fancy the spotlight - those people do far too much work for not nearly enough credit - but he thinks he could do a pretty decent job of sitting in the background and pulling all the strings, giving other people the responsibility of both credit and blame. If he did that, then he wouldn’t mind if no-one knew his name because that would mean he’d done his job right.

Maybe one day.

He pulls open the door to his pathetic imitation of an office - he doesn’t have a key as nothing important enough is kept in his office for a lock to be required - and sinks down into his uncomfortable chair, his mind full.

The Nought Education Act of 2000.

It’s so close, Mycroft can feel it now. And he’s worked so hard to get here. Four years of hard slog and endless toil. Four years of dismissive remarks and jokes at his expense and doors slammed in his face. Managing to contact Millfield was a godsend, but it didn’t protect him from the harsh realities of life as a nought within the British Government. But, nevertheless, he has made it. He’s survived, and Sherlock’s Bill might finally become a reality. He realised on his arrival that he had badly misjudged the amount of time such a thing would take. The country might have been ready for change years ago, but no-one had yet informed a lot of the politicians. 

Still, it’s here now. He’s done it. In his stomach he feels a childlike excitement building, the like of which he hasn’t felt since long before the end of his childhood. Now that Millfield has brought it up, the obvious thing to do is to tell Sherlock. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t been tempted before. He has, albeit reluctantly, kept his distance from Sherlock and his mother since he left for London, correctly surmising that it’s safer for all of them that way. Of course, he keeps tabs on his brother. All noughts are automatically monitored on a central government database, access to which Mycroft exercises remarkable restraint over and restricts himself to checking up on Sherlock and his mother only once every few weeks. He has, however, refrained from getting in contact with them since their father’s funeral. Now is the time to break that habit. He doesn’t know if Sherlock has a mobile phone or an email account, but he can find out.

Using Millfield’s details, as he is not deemed worthy of having his own, Mycroft clicks into the database and accesses his brother’s file, which details information such as his address, contact details, education, current work status, medical history, criminal record and any political affiliations along with other, much more personal data. All of this information on Sherlock it is deemed necessary for the government to have in one, easily accessible place for the single reason that he is a nought. Mycroft knows that he must have a file too, but has always kept himself from looking at it. He is quite sure that he doesn’t want to know.

Because of all the security protocol, it takes a while for Sherlock’s file to load. When it does, Mycroft has to blink several times before his brain registers what his eyes are telling it. Then he reloads the page and looks again. And again.

Well, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must say that, despite being British, I know next to nothing about our legal system. I tried to research it, of course, but found most of it to be hopelessly confusing as my brain is not in any way political. I hope I have at least managed to get the terminology right, and if there are any inaccuracies or discrepancies then I think we’ll just call them quirks of this alternate universe. That being said, if anyone does know anything about such matters and spots any major howlers, then I would be delighted if you’d let me know. I am aware that it probably takes a lot longer to get a bill through parliament then happens on many occasions in this fic, but I think we’ll put that down to the AU and the fact that urgent bills can be rushed through parliament. I like to think that much of the legislation I mention both here and later on in this fic would qualify as urgent.


	5. The Liberation Militia

**November 2000**

It takes Mycroft several months to track his brother down. While nothing was explicitly stated on Sherlock’s file so he doesn’t have to worry about his own job - employing a nought is one thing but employing a nought with a close family member in the Liberation Militia is quite another - the clues that are there are so obvious to Mycroft (and probably him alone, for which he is absurdly thankful) that it may as well be written in bold letters across the top of the first page and then broadcast on BBC1. To Mycroft, knowing his brother as he does and having a brain like he does, there is no question. His brother’s whereabouts might be a mystery to the government, but not to him. Sherlock is in the Liberation Militia. And Mycroft is going to get him out.

***

Sherlock likes being in the LM. For the first time in his life he is being both physically and mentally stretched on an almost daily basis. The Criterion Cell is one of the LM’s many training cells, and these cells push their members hard.

Sherlock is the youngest by a year and a half from John, who is the second youngest by three years. As a result, he feels he has a lot to prove.

A lot of training involves fitness. Sherlock, along with John, Murray and the four other recruits, runs for miles, scales walls, wades through waist-deep, icy water and learns more exercises than he even knew existed. They learn how to hold a rifle, carry a rifle, aim a rifle, fire a rifle, strip a rifle, clean a rifle, remake a rifle, conceal a rifle, discard a rifle. They learn how to aim properly when dizzy from a 100 metre sprint, a brisk mile run, a steady half hour jog. When this is done, they move onto handguns and pistols, then shotguns.

Behind the old farm building that acts as base, living quarters and classroom, they build a make-shift assault course with tyres and bits of wood and tarpaulin and chicken wire and old furniture and yards and yards of rope. They run it every day, timed of course. Sherlock improves day after day. He’s still not as fast as John, which annoys him no end.

One weekend, a couple of months in, the six recruits are driven an unspecified distance and dumped by the side of the road in the middle of a wood.

‘See you back at base,’ their leader says cheerfully, before driving off into the gathering darkness.

They all peer around doubtfully.

‘Right,’ Murray says eventually. ‘Well. How far have we come?’

It sounds like a rhetorical question, but everyone knows it’s aimed at Sherlock. It has not taken them long to catch onto Sherlock’s intelligence.

‘Hard to tell,’ Sherlock frowns briefly, as if considering it a personal failing. ‘I’d guess twelve, maybe thirteen miles. On roads as winding as those it’s much harder to tell than normal.’

‘And what stuff have we got?’ Murray asks. ‘They didn’t exactly give us any warning of this, did they?'

No-one bothers to look at Sherlock this time. His intelligence isn’t the only thing they’ve caught on to - they all know he’s worse than useless for this kind of thing.

It’s John, good, dependable John who comes up trumps. 

‘Torch,’ he says, turning out his many pockets. ‘Swiss army knife. Compass.’

‘Do you just carry that stuff around with you?’ Sherlock asks, intrigued.

‘Don’t say a thing about it,’ John replies threateningly.

Sherlock wasn’t planning on it. He was just admiring the organisational skills that he so desperately lacks in most areas of his life.

‘Well,’ he says. ‘If you’ve got a compass, then it’s easy. We just have to wait for the North Star to come up.’

‘We don’t even know what direction we’ve got to go in,’ frowns someone who’s name Sherlock hasn’t bothered remembering.

‘Well no,’ Sherlock admits. ‘But due south is a good start. Eventually we’ll find a road that can help us out.’

‘How do you know we’ve got to start off due south?’ Murray demands.

‘We drove due north to start off with,’ Sherlock explains, frowning slightly. ‘We didn’t stay that way, obviously, but that was the general direction. Didn’t you know that?’

The general dumbfounded expressions - and John’s impressed one - tells him that they did not.

‘Sure?’ someone asks, after a few moments of silence.

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ John says quickly. He knows that the other recruits find Sherlock hard to deal with sometimes. Well, a lot of the time. ‘We’ll just have to wait for it to be dark enough to see the stars then. Easy.’

‘Or look at the lichen growing on the trees,’ Sherlock puts in. ‘It grows much more healthily on the north side of the trunk.’

There are a few grudgingly impressed grumblings at this, and everyone fans out in the gloom to inspect the trees.

‘John,’ Sherlock hisses. ‘John.’

‘What is it?’

John turns around to face Sherlock, squinting up at him. Even in the darkness, Sherlock can see that his eyes are shining in anticipation. 

Sherlock edges closer. He doesn’t want anyone else to hear.

‘Do you know how to use a compass?’ he asks in a low voice.

‘Of course,’ John looks surprised. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I know the theory,’ Sherlock snaps quietly. ‘Never bothered to learn in practice. I’m sure I could manage perfectly adequately, but under the circumstances it might be easier if I had a little help.’

‘Well, yes, I know how to in practice,’ John reassures him. Then he frowns. ‘Seems a bit weird that they haven’t taught us something like how to use a compass, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh, they’ll start soon enough,’ Sherlock says dismissively. ‘Probably as soon as we get back. This is a test.’

‘Well, I’d worked that much out,’ John grins. ‘Let’s search for this all important lichen then, come on.’

By the time John whispers to Sherlock that that one is the North Star, no, that one there look, it only serves to confirm what they already know.

They make it back before daybreak. Just over eleven and a half miles. Judging by the reaction to their return, their speed seems to be impressive.

As Sherlock predicted, they start map and compass reading the next day, after running the assault course twice. Sherlock, having been receiving private little lessons from John on their trek across country, excels. The two of them finish their tasks in under half the assigned time and are told they can be excused the third assault course run of the day. John goes and does it anyway. Sherlock goes out to accompany him. He brings a book and tells himself he is not watching and he is most definitely not feeling impressed and just the tiniest bit envious.

As hard and draining as the physical side of training is, the educational side is trickier for Sherlock. Used to being the cleverest in any room - unless Mycroft is present, in which case they both fight for the honour - it is disconcerting to him to know so little of what he’s being taught.

It’s enjoyable though. It’s a challenge, which is what school is desperately wasn’t, and he relishes it. As well as their map and compass lessons, they have lessons in subterfuge and military tactics. Among their more practical lessons is the art of bomb making. During these sessions, John is always very quiet. Sherlock can sense the disapproval radiating from him.

‘I feel like I’m being prepped for war,’ one of the other recruits who isn’t Murray complains one evening.

‘You are,’ Sherlock tells him blankly. ‘Surely you’re can’t be stupid enough to not see that.’

‘You what?’ not-Murray spits, glaring at him.

‘It’s nothing,’ John puts in hastily, grabbing Sherlock’s arm. ‘Sherlock’s sorry, aren’t you?’

Is he?

‘Yes,’ Sherlock says quickly, after a pointed stare from John. ‘I am. Erm, sorry.’

To say that none of the other recruits have really taken to Sherlock is an understatement. He is the youngest by a number of years and he arrived last, both factors which make things more difficult for him. But Sherlock knows that it’s not a case of arrive late and be alienated for life, because one of the other recruits who isn’t Murray only arrived a matter of days before he did. Even John and Murray, who have been around the longest, only have just over a month on Sherlock.

Still, Sherlock doesn’t need friends. He’s never needed friends. He’s here for a reason and nothing else matters but relieving the endless monotony of his old life. It’s not his fault if John keeps hanging around him. He’s just too polite to tell him to shove off. No, really.

***

‘The high-ups are thinking of organising some kind of prison break,’ John tells Sherlock one evening, coming in from running their makeshift assault course with Murray and collapsing on his bed in a muddy, sweaty heap. It’s two months since they built the thing and John is still faster than Sherlock, damn him.

Sherlock, who has been engaged in more cerebral pursuits, looks up.

‘What for?’ he frowns, wrinkling his nose at both the sight and smell of John.

‘Getting those men out of jail, of course.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sherlock,’ John sighs. ‘We were talking about it all last night. It was on the news. Those men sentenced to a year in prison for using a Cross area of a bus because the nought area was full and then refusing to move when they were asked.’

‘Stupid,’ Sherlock mutters under his breath.

‘So yeah,’ John says, evidently not hearing Sherlock. ‘Apparently some kind of plan is being formulated to get them out of prison.’

‘Like I said, what for?’

‘Well, because they shouldn’t be there,’ John says slowly.

‘Guilty people shouldn’t be imprisoned?’ Sherlock queries. ‘Interesting.’

‘Of course guilty people should be in prison,’ replies John impatiently. ‘But these men shouldn’t be.’

‘They broke the law,’ Sherlock says.

‘Yes.’

‘Therefore they’re guilty.’

‘Technically yes.’

‘Therefore we should not be “breaking them out”, as you so eloquently put it.’

‘Yes we absolutely should,’ John says hotly. ‘The law is rubbish, you know that. Stop being stupid.’

‘They knew the law when they did what they did,’ Sherlock shrugs. ‘They knew the consequences of being caught. As my mother used to say; they’ve made their bed, now they can lie in it.’

‘Oh rubbish,’ snaps John.

‘Is that not the expression?’ Sherlock frowns.

‘That is not the point.’

‘Well then kindly explain.’

‘You really weren’t kidding when you said you were here for yourself, were you?’ says John incredulously. ‘Bloody hell. You don’t even care.’

‘Will my sitting here and fretting about the whole thing do anything to help those men?’ Sherlock asks.

‘Well no, but - ’

‘Whether I care or not makes no difference to their plight,’ Sherlock shrugs. ‘So why should I waste my energies? If they were innocent it might be a little different, but they broke the law and now they’re in prison. That’s the way the world works.’

‘You cold-hearted bastard.’

‘I’m being realistic.’

‘There’s being realistic and then there’s…’

John trails off. Words seem to have failed him.

‘I shouldn’t worry about it, John,’ says Sherlock. ‘You seem to care enough for the both of us.’

‘Everyone here cares like I do!’ John explodes. ‘It’s just you! Bloody hell, this is all a game to you, isn’t it?’

‘Have I ever given the impression that this is anything but?’ Sherlock replies calmly. It makes John want to hit him. ‘I get bored, and this is something to do to keep me occupied. It has its moments but mostly it’s quite interesting really. And then there is the added advantage that once improvements have been made to the system, I will have the freedom to indulge my whims how I wish. If along the way I help some people, then everyone’s a winner.’

John throws himself off his bed so violently Sherlock thinks for a minute that it might tip over.

‘Where are you going?’ he frowns, as John reaches for his jacket.

‘Out,’ John snaps. ‘I need some air.’

‘You’ve just had some,’ Sherlock points out.

The only answer he gets is the slamming of the door.

***

John is still not speaking to him the next day when they’re given some rare free time for a whole afternoon. The others instantly head for their rooms to collapse, while Sherlock and John stand and look at each other uneasily. Their leader and his two assistants, the only female and Sherlock’s contact, who he has finally discovered is called Stamford, are talking in low voices in the kitchen.

‘I guess,’ John says, shuffling uncomfortably. ‘Erm, I guess we should go back to our room? Maybe some extra sleep would be a good idea.’

‘Sleeping’s boring,’ Sherlock says dismissively.

‘Well then you can read something as silently as you ever mange, and I’ll sleep,’ John suggests, a little irritably.

‘Nothing to read,’ replies Sherlock sullenly. ‘Think of something else.’

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ John snaps. ‘Must I act as your babysitter? Bloody hell, you’re sixteen. Entertain yourself.’

‘Boring,’ Sherlock pronounces, stalking off in search of something to do. ‘Bored. Where’s my rifle?’

‘Oh no, you don’t,’ John cries, hurrying after Sherlock and seizing his arm. ‘I don’t know. Why not sleep? Aren’t you tired?’

‘Boring,’ Sherlock mutters insolently. ‘Can’t you come up with anything interesting, John?’

‘Oh I don’t know,’ John plants himself firmly in front of Sherlock and puts his hands on his hips. ‘If there’s nothing for you to read here, then go and find something new to read. Go to the library or something.’

‘Oh well there’s a jolly terrorist outing,’ Sherlock says flippantly. ‘Off to the library. I think I’ll get out “Bomb Making for Dummies”, an encyclopaedia of different firearms and maybe a volume on the MLK years in the USA. That won’t arouse any suspicion. Fantastic idea, John.’

John’s face has been slowly darkening with the progression of Sherlock’s little speech.

‘Do it your bloody self then,’ he snaps. ‘I don’t know why I bother. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you have no interest in any of this. I’ll leave you alone in future.’

A little surprisingly, the word “Good” sticks in Sherlock’s throat and he can’t get it out. He’s so busy contemplating this fact that he doesn’t stop John from marching away from him and down the corridor. He only realises that John is no longer right next to him when he hears their door slam. That won’t please the people trying to sleep.

When Sherlock peers into the room a few seconds later, John is standing with his back to the door and his arms folded, motionless.

‘I don’t know where the nearest library is,’ Sherlock says abruptly.

John says nothing. He does not even give any sign of acknowledging Sherlock’s presence.

‘I can’t find something to read if I don’t know where the nearest library is,’ he tries again.

No movement. Sherlock is going to have to apologise, for everything. The thing is that he’s never been good at apologies. He can only hope that John is as perceptive as he’s seemed over the past quarter of a year. It seems ironic that Sherlock, who has never wanted a friend, should find this boy, who appears to be the perfect foil for him in every way. Someone who actually understands him.

Sherlock has to apologise, and he has to do it now.

‘John, I, erm, I would very much like it if you showed me the way to the nearest library. It would, erm, be very good of you if you would.’

_John, I, erm, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. You were only trying to help. It’s very, erm, good of you to put up with me when no-one else can stand me._

‘Oh, would it?’

John’s voice is sarcastic, but at least he’s speaking.

‘Yes, it would. Erm, I’d appreciate it.’

_Sorry you think less of me because of the reasons that I’m here. I can’t help it. It’s who I am._

‘Right,’ John says suddenly, twisting his head to look Sherlock dead in the eye.

_It’s okay. I’m sorry too._

‘Right?’ Sherlock echoes.

‘Let’s go,’ John says. ‘Let’s see if I can remember the way to the village.’

***

As it turns out, John does remember the way to the village. It’s a nice walk and they do it mostly in silence. The silence is not uncomfortable, like the silence of the past 24 hours. It’s almost pleasant and Sherlock, who should by rights be bored to tears by the whole thing, finds himself enjoying it.

They reach the library. Sherlock decides that maybe checking his email for the first time since leaving home might be a good idea. This proves to be a mistake.

From: CLASSIFIED  
Sent: 28 October 2000, 15:31  
To: CLASSIFIED  
Subject: -

_S,_

_It has taken me a long time to write this because it’s been hard work tracking down a working email address for you. Congratulations on that fact, if nothing else._

_I know that it’s been a long time, and you have my apologies for that. The lack of contact has been to keep you and our mother safe. I have been monitoring you periodically for a time and I hope you have fared well since our father’s funeral._

_You may be wondering what has prompted me to get in touch after three years - although, knowing you, you are probably not - but I am writing to tell you that, as of yesterday, the Nought Education Act of 2000 became a reality. The news will be released tomorrow and, as of next September, noughts will have to right to remain in education until the age of eighteen if they so desire. You know what this means._

_Given the information that I have access to, I know what is going on in your life. I am therefore also contacting you to tell you to wake up and stop this nonsense. Things are improving, and this ridiculous behaviour will do nothing but hinder you in your later life. I know why you’re doing it. Stop it._

_I only want what’s best for you, remember that._

_M_

Sherlock stares. Then he stares some more. How long he sits there motionless he does not know, but he only comes back to life when John places his hand on his shoulder.

‘Okay?’ he asks.

‘What date is it?’ Sherlock snaps, shuddering back to life at once.

‘Erm, November,’ John replies. ‘I think it’s the twelfth. Maybe the thirteenth. Or the fifteenth. Why?’

‘Why has there not been any news about an education act being passed allowing noughts to stay on at school?’ demands Sherlock.

‘There was,’ John says slowly. ‘Two, maybe three weeks ago? Hang on, let me think. Yeah, I think it was a couple of weeks ago. Don’t you remember?’

‘Why did no-one tell me?’ Sherlock asks impatiently.

‘We discussed it a lot,’ John tells him, clearly a little confused. ‘It was all we discussed over dinner for days.’

‘We?’

‘Everyone except you,’ John corrects himself. ‘But you never talk during dinner, so that wasn’t exactly surprising. Do you not even listen?’

‘Boring,’ Sherlock replies automatically.

His mind is spinning. Mycroft did it. He actually did it.

_Two years too late. It’s no good now. I’ve made my bed, now I’ll lie in it. Butt out, you interfering arse._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MLK is, of course, Martin Luther King. I ummed and ahhed about this, but in the end I opted to mention him and therefore to allow him to exist in this world. I’ve ultimately decided that, in this AU, Martin Luther King was a Cross man who was a champion of nought rights in the USA at the same time as the real Martin Luther King was around. Because of him, noughts have equality in the USA while the UK languishes behind.


	6. Equality is Not Just Theoretical

**February 2001**

As long as John doesn’t think about it, doesn’t _really_ think, he gets on fine within the Liberation Militia. Yes, alright, it’s technically a terrorist organisation, but he’s not going to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Normal, everyday Crosses don’t deserve to die, just the same as normal, everyday noughts.

It seems, however, that not all of his new acquaintances agree with this sentiment.

‘Fucking Daggers,’ someone says with meaning one afternoon. ‘They’re nothing but filth, all of them.’

John scowls deeply. He sees Sherlock looking but refuses to meet his eyes. His thoughts are so scrambled right now that he knows that anything he tries to say will be utterly unintelligible.

‘If you speak like that then you’re no better than them,’ Sherlock replies smoothly, because God forbid he should ever suffer from inarticulateness. ‘After all, a lot of them think we’re all filth.’

John blinks a little in surprise. Not at Sherlock’s coherence - that’s no surprise to him now, after six months - but at the words actually coming out of his mouth. Those are John’s words, not Sherlock’s. John is unexpectedly touched.

‘Well,’ is the spluttering reply. ‘If they don’t want us to think they’re filth then they should act better, shouldn’t they?’

‘I’m sure that’s what they say about us,’ Sherlock responds, quite unconcerned by the dirty looks he’s being thrown. ‘Being a terrorist is not exactly the picture of innocence and piety, is it?’

John finally looks up in time to catch the looks of confusion that are being shared. For someone who didn’t attend school with any regularity, Sherlock has a stunning vocabulary.

While John’s busy marvelling at Sherlock’s linguistic ability, Stamford joins in.

‘Holmes is right, you know,’ he says, clearly trying to diffuse the budding argument.

‘Of course,’ Sherlock mutters. John bites down on his lip.

‘It goes both ways,’ Stamford continues, ignoring the mulish looks he’s getting. At least it’s turned the attention away from Sherlock. ‘If you want respect from Crosses then you should respect them too.’

‘They don’t deserve respect.’

‘Neither do terrorists,’ Sherlock says blandly. The glares snap back onto him, increasingly in intensity slightly.

‘There are Crosses on our side, too,’ John says staunchly, finally finding his voice. One or two heads flick towards him. ‘You know there are. My first contact with the LM was through a Cross.’

‘Pah,’ Murray snorts. ‘Maybe one or two, but most Crosses are happy to sit on their arses and let everything go on as normal.’

‘Not all of them,’ replies John stubbornly.

Murray looks at him slightly pityingly.

‘John,’ he says. ‘You’re a decent guy, but you’re too damn _nice_ about people.’

‘Nah,’ someone else pipes up. ‘I think Watson’s right. You can’t hate all Crosses just because they’re Crosses, otherwise you’re saying it’s okay for people to hate you just because you’re a nought.’

‘ _I_ said that,’ Sherlock grumbles under his breath.

‘And I was the one who meant it, so shut up,’ John whispers back, digging an elbow into his friend’s side.

At this moment, the conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the leader of the Criterion.

‘Get out, oiks,’ he orders shortly.

At this, John, Sherlock and the rest get to their feet and head off down the corridor without a word. The form of address is not offensive - it’s used so regularly, the man clearly doesn’t mean it and his temper is obviously frayed.

‘What do you think’s happened?’ John wonders aloud, addressing everyone but only really speaking to Sherlock.

The others know this, too, and they all turn towards Sherlock, brewing disagreement completely forgotten.

‘I don’t know,’ Sherlock frowns, annoyed. ‘I need data - I’m not psychic.’

‘Si-what?’ 

‘Oh honestly,’ sighs Sherlock. ‘Did you lot even attend school? I have no supernatural power which allows me to access the cerebral processes of other people. Or, in layman’s terms, I cannot read minds. Happy?’

None of their companions look especially happy, but at this point they reach John and Sherlock’s room and John shoves Sherlock inside with no small amount of relief. Sherlock can earn himself another punch at some other time.

‘What?’ Sherlock asks innocently, in response to John’s glare. 

John finds himself thinking that his glare would probably have been a little more effective if not accompanied by the wry smile, but never mind.

‘How come, if you didn’t go to school,’ he says, instead of dwelling on this. ‘How did you end up talking like you do? You sound like you’ve swallowed a dictionary.’

‘Swallowing a dictionary would hardly have the results you’re referring to,’ Sherlock frowns disapprovingly. ‘There is a difference between speaking properly and eloquently and just throwing out long and fancy words because you can. Elaborate synonyms are not always the answer, you know.’

‘You’re doing it again,’ John accuses, but he’s grinning. Sherlock is too. ‘And you were doing it on purpose earlier, weren’t you? You just wanted to confuse the others so they wouldn’t argue with you and pester you for more information.’

Sherlock blinks at John.

‘Would I?’

‘Oh yes,’ John grins. ‘You would. Certainly. Definitely. Absolutely. Unquestionably.’

Sherlock’s eyes narrow.

‘Are you laughing at me, John?’

‘Would I?’

And then they’re giggling. It occurs to John that Sherlock doesn’t laugh nearly enough, and that he really should because it’s so much better than his usual frown; the one that says that Sherlock hates the world and expects everyone in it to hate him right back. Well, John doesn’t. He’s quite sure that Sherlock has never known before what it’s like to have a proper friend, and John is determined to enlighten him.

‘I blame my brother,’ Sherlock says eventually, finally able to answer John’s original question once he’s stopped giggling. ‘Mycroft’s aim in life seems to be to talk as if he’s got a marble in his mouth, and I was, regretfully, rather influenced by him as a child.’

‘What does your brother actually do?’ John asks curiously, sobering too. ‘You’ve never said. How was he able to send that email the other month? What does he know?’

Sherlock sighs.

‘Mycroft is ambitious,’ he explains as briefly as possible. ‘He works in the government, trying to influence new laws and such. He works for a man who is sympathetic to our cause and sends all of his ideas through him. Mycroft’s name might not be on any of the bills but it is written all over them.’

Judging by Sherlock’s annoyed expression, the amazement that John is currently feeling is showing on his face. Clearly, amazement is not an emotion that should be directed towards Mycroft. Typical little brother.

‘Wow,’ John says eventually. It’s all he can think to say.

‘Oh shut up,’ Sherlock snaps. ‘He’s a smarmy git. Don’t you dare start to idolise him.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘Any dream involving Mycroft would invariably be a nightmare,’ Sherlock mutters.

John giggles.

‘So,’ he says. ‘What do you think that was all about, then? Shoving us out of the way like that; something important must have happened.’

‘It is a mistake to theorise without all the facts,’ replies Sherlock sternly, clearly glad to leave the topic of his brother behind.

‘Just a guess then?’

‘I never guess.’

In the end, Sherlock doesn’t have to guess because they’re soon called back to the main living area.

‘Don’t talk, just listen,’ says the only female member of their cell, once everyone is assembled.

She flicks the switch on the radio.

_‘And so, Chris, what else have you got to tell us about our main story?’_

_‘Well, I’m here in Westminster where earlier today it was announced that nought and Cross schools will receive equal funding in the near future. Nought schools, especially secondary schools, have been notoriously under-funded for the last few decades, leading to low standards to education among nought communities and mostly consigning noughts to menial and unskilled jobs. MP James Millfield, partially responsible for drafting the bill, has just released a statement saying that he hopes this will lead to an increase in overall standards in nought education. This law will doubtlessly been seen by some as a symbolic step towards equality for noughts in this country. That’s all the information available for now, but any new developments or statements will of course be brought to you as soon as possible.’_

There is silence. John sneaks a look at Sherlock, not bothering to conceal his grin. To his surprise, Sherlock’s expression is utterly blank. John doesn’t like this. Anger he can cope with, along with contempt and disdain and condescension and resignation and defiance, but blankness is new and disconcerting. Sherlock always has an opinion, on everything, and whatever has caused this reaction cannot be good.

Given that they had the conversation only a matter of minutes ago, it takes John an embarrassingly long time to catch on. Of course, Sherlock’s brother.

When Sherlock gets up and leaves before anyone can say anything, John looks around briefly at all the curious faces before shrugging and following his friend out.

‘He’s doing it for me,’ Sherlock says in a low voice, not bothering to wait for John to ask once their door has slammed behind them. ‘Interfering git.’

‘I doubt he’s doing it just for you,’ John ventures cautiously. ‘That law is to help all nought kids, and isn’t that a good thing?’

‘No,’ Sherlock spits. ‘He just can’t keep his nose out.’

‘Are you sure you’re not just jealous because it’s come too late for you?’

‘No,’ snaps Sherlock indignantly. ‘I don’t care about organised learning. It’s a waste of time.’

_Maybe you only think that because you’re organised learning was so badly organised that it wasn’t worth your while,_ John thinks. He doesn’t want his facial features rearranged, though, so he sensibly doesn’t voice this opinion.

‘Well,’ he says instead. ‘Whatever you think of your brother, this new law can only be a good thing as far as we’re concerned.’

‘Pah,’ says Sherlock. ‘It’ll never happen. Just you wait and see.’

***

As it turns out, they don’t have to wait long at all to begin to see Sherlock’s gloomy prediction coming true.

Within two weeks of the announcement of the new law, several protest groups have been formed and two demonstrations have taken place in London.

‘The Crosses are taking the news well then, I see,’ Murray says sarcastically one afternoon.

Sherlock’s expression could not say I-told-you-so more clearly if he printed the words across his forehead.

‘Oh, let’s just go out and hijack their protests - that would shut them up,’ someone suggests.

John’s eyebrows draw together in a frown.

‘They’d think twice about it next time,’ someone else agrees. ‘That’s what the LM should be doing. Nothing’s happened for ages anyway, nothing major. Maybe they should target these protests. The bloody Daggers deserve it.’

Stamford clears his throat. Everyone, apart from Sherlock, jumps slightly, having forgotten he was in the room.

‘Not exactly up to us to decide that, boys,’ he says quietly. ‘You’re all still in training now, so leave the decisions up to the bosses.’

‘And just because they’re protesting it doesn’t mean we should blow them up,’ John puts in, unable to remain silent. ‘It’s not like they’re trying to blow _us_ up.’

‘You’re such a Dagger-lover,’ someone glares at him. ‘What are you even doing here, Watson? Anyone would think you secretly enjoyed the mindless oppression.’

‘Fuck off,’ John snaps back.

‘Touchy.’

‘Just because I don’t automatically hate all Crosses I’m a Dagger-lover?’

‘Are you not?’

John stands up, roughly shoving his chair back.

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he says through clenched teeth. ‘I’m going outside.’

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Sherlock rise slightly from his chair. Without looking at his friend he shakes his head minutely from one side to the other. Sherlock will see.

‘Come on, Johnny Boy,’ Murray protests. ‘We’re not having a go, mate. It’s just a bit of a funny thing to say when you’re in the LM!’

John bangs the door shut behind him.

***

‘Alright, John?’

John looks up. Stamford is standing there, smiling at him. 

It’s the first time anyone apart from Sherlock or Murray has called him John.

‘Yeah,’ he says briefly. ‘Fine.’

‘No-one thinks badly of you, you know,’ Stamford says conversationally, coming to lean on the wall next to John.

John snorts.

‘Some of them do,’ he replies, shaking his head.

‘Well, I don’t,’ Stamford offers. ‘There’s something to be said for having the strength of character not to hate all Crosses.’

‘It’s just a case of only wanting people to die who actually deserve it.’

‘Like I said; strength of character.’

‘Morals,’ John mutters.

‘It takes strength of character to have morals when you’re one of the oppressed.’

‘Does it?’ John muses, squinting in the fading light. ‘It’s just common decency, isn’t it?’

‘If you like.’

They stand in silence for a while, just staring out across the fields.

When John eventually heads inside, he finds Sherlock sprawled across his bed, scowling fiercely at the ceiling.

‘What’s up?’ he asks wearily. He doesn’t really have the energy to pull Sherlock out of a bad mood right now.

‘Another message from Mycroft,’ Sherlock says dully.

‘Ah.’

John doesn’t even bother trying to wonder how Mycroft got the message to Sherlock.

‘Indeed,’ Sherlock says. 

He sounds so blank that John wants to shake some life back into him. Instead, he flops down on his own bed. After several minutes of some mutual glowering at the ceiling, John speaks again.

‘It’s not up to him, you know,’ he says casually. ‘It’s your life for you to do what you want with. You don’t have to go back to school if you don’t want to.’

‘How do you know what he said?’ Sherlock asks, still sounding blank. It makes John’s chest ache.

‘I thought I was the idiot,’ John replies, trying to smile. ‘What else is going to make you look like that?’

‘Like what?’

John can hear the frown in Sherlock’s voice, even if he can’t see his face.

‘You sound so…. empty,’ John explains slowly.

‘So do you.’

There is silence for a bit.

‘Not a great day for either of us, then,’ John eventually says.

‘I’m fine,’ replies Sherlock, a bit too quickly.

John sits up. Sherlock does too. Their eyes meet for the first time.

‘Me too,’ John says. ‘Me too.’

Sherlock continues to just look at him. John can read the message as clearly as if it were spoken.

_I don’t think you’re an idiot. There’s no weakness in not wanting to blow people up._

John does actually manage a smile this time. He only hopes that Sherlock is getting his reply back just as clearly.

_I don’t think I’m an idiot either. And neither are you. Let your brother do things his way and you do them your way. Nothing wrong with that._

‘So,’ John says. ‘Game of cards? Just not poker - I’m fed up with you deducing my cards every hand.’

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

‘It’s hardly my fault if you give every little thing away with your face, John,’ he pouts. 

‘Not poker,’ says John firmly. ‘Pick something else. You know you’ll win, anyway.’

‘True,’ Sherlock concedes. ‘Get the deck out.’

‘What are we playing?’

‘Well, you’ll find out when I deal, won’t you?’

***

Sometimes, when he’s lying in bed at night and can’t get to sleep, John marvels at the fact that he appears to have made the best friend he’s ever had by joining the LM.

***

Sometimes, when he’s lying in bed at night and can’t get to sleep, Sherlock marvels at the wonder that is John Watson and how he could have found someone who actually understands him and accepts him for who he is.


	7. Boredom Leads to Recklessness

**July 2001**

Almost a year to the day after John joined the LM, they’re told they’re ready to move on. The Criterion Cell is moving further north to take on another batch of new recruits, and John, Sherlock and their contemporaries are now deemed to be of some usefulness to other, fully fledged cells. 

‘I’m coming with you,’ Stamford tells John one evening.

‘You what?’ John blinks at him. ‘You know where we’re going next?’

‘Of course I do,’ says Stamford. ‘It’s all been in the pipe line for months. You’re all going to different cells according to your particular strengths.’

‘Right,’ John replies, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. ‘Different cells, of course.’

‘And like I said, I’m coming with you,’ Stamford nudges him with one elbow. ‘They’re picking up someone else in the north so I am surplus to requirements. Quite looking forward to it, actually. Be a nice change. No more snotty-nosed recruits.’

‘Hey,’ John says playfully. He’s always liked Stamford. He’s always been easy to talk to, and made John feel like he’s an equal rather than a trainee. ‘That was me not so long ago.’

‘Nah, you were never a snotty-nosed one,’ says Stamford, grinning. ‘Can’t believe you’re such a baby really; you’ve always seemed older.’

‘Sherlock’s younger,’ John points out. ‘Anyway, I’m nineteen in a couple of weeks. That’s not so young.’

Stamford frowns at him.

‘You’ve been here a year haven’t you?’

John nods. He tells himself to keep focused on the conversation to distract himself from the knots his intestines are currently twisting themselves into.

‘I thought you were eighteen when you came. Lie about your age, did you?’

‘Turned eighteen about a month after I got here,’ John shrugs. ‘The day Sherlock arrived, actually.’

‘You never said.’

‘Didn’t seem to be much point,’ says John. ‘Sherlock was arriving and everyone was busy. It wasn’t like you’d have thrown me a party.’

‘Talking of your pal, I seem to have rather drawn the short straw,’ Stamford says. ‘I can probably put up with you for God-knows what length of time, but Holmes will definitely be another matter. I’ll be counting on you to rein him in.’

John’s head jerks up eagerly.

‘What?’ 

‘You didn’t think we were going to inflict Holmes on some poor, unsuspecting cell without his minder for help, did you?’ Stamford grins at him.

‘I’m not his minder,’ John replies automatically. He and Sherlock are staying together. He and Sherlock are staying together.

‘Boyfriend then,’ says Stamford, with a knowing wink.

‘I’m not his boyfriend,’ answers John, with a hint of irritation. Luckily, he’s too full of relief to feel too much annoyance at the much abused little joke regarding his relationship with Sherlock.

‘Fuck-buddy?’

John looks up at Stamford. There’s no joviality in his round face now. He’s honestly asking.

‘We’re not like that,’ he says impatiently, for what feels like the hundredth time.

‘You sure?’ Stamford asks. ‘Because I know Sherlock and I know you, and I’ve never seen any two people be quite as… _close_ as you two are without there being love or shagging or something involved.’

‘We’re friends,’ John shrugs. ‘Not boyfriends, not fuck-buddies, just friends.’

‘We’re friends, and you weren’t having a silent freak-out because you thought I wouldn’t be with you in your next cell,’ says Stamford pointedly. 

John is a little taken aback by Stamford’s assessment of their relationship - Stamford is his superior, he didn’t realise he also thought of John as a friend - that it takes him even longer than it would have otherwise done to answer.

‘I can’t explain,’ he says in the end, because he can’t. ‘I’ve never known anyone like him. We just… work. You know what he’s like.’

‘Yep,’ says Stamford, who has indeed been on the receiving end of Sherlock’s snide manner on more than one occasion. ‘And you two do seem to work well together. I’ve helped to train several batches of recruits and I’ve never seen anything like it. We’re not just sending the two of you off to the same cell because Sherlock needs a babysitter, you know. We figured that both of you together would be worth more than the sum of the two of you individually.’

John considers this. He thinks it might be about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to him.

‘So,’ he says. ‘Now that I know you know where we’re all headed off to, I can ask - when are we getting chucked out?’

‘You, me and Holmes are leaving in a couple of days,’ Stamford informs him. ‘I’m driving the van. We’ll be going overnight.’

‘Good,’ replies John absently. ‘What’s the cell called? Can you tell me?’

Stamford thinks for a second.

‘Can’t do any harm I suppose,’ he shrugs. ‘It’s called the Lucky Cat. Just don’t go asking me where it’s located - you’ll know all you need to know in a couple of days. Now, skip along and tell your not-fuck-buddy. And make sure he’s packed in time.’

‘Not his minder!’ John calls, as he makes for the door.

‘No,’ Stamford chuckles. John can feel eyes on his back as he opens the door. ‘But you are the only person with a hope in hell of making him to get organised. Two nights time, don’t forget.’

***

John likes the surroundings of the new cell. He can tell that Sherlock does too, but Sherlock being Sherlock means he will not admit it.

The two of them are sharing a rather cramped room with Stamford. John hasn’t quite managed to get his head around the fact that here, Stamford is thought of as equal to them. He voices this thought to Sherlock.

‘He has very little practical experience,’ says Sherlock dismissively. ‘He’s been in a while, yes, but training new recruits hardly counts in the real world.’

John accepts this. It’s just a little hard to get his head around, that’s all. In a rank-pulling organisation like the LM, it’s confusing when things become less clear cut than they were.

‘You’re thinking about it too much,’ Sherlock informs him severely. ‘It really doesn’t matter.’

‘I never thought I’d hear the day when you were telling me I was thinking too much,’ John grumbles. ‘Not enough, yes, but not too much.’

‘Are you two fighting like an old married couple already?’ Stamford asks cheerily, coming back from his little exploration of their new cell’s base. ‘This is going to be jolly, isn’t it? I feel like such a third wheel.’

‘He is not my boyfriend,’ John says firmly. He had been hoping to leave that particular joke behind in the Criterion, but evidently that is not going to happen.

‘Wouldn’t have happened anyway,’ Sherlock pipes up. ‘People here would have seen the way we are and jumped to the same erroneous conclusion as Stamford and co did.’

‘Are you reading his mind?’ Stamford says incredulously.

‘Yep,’ John sighs. ‘Well, he claims not to be but I think he is. Haven’t you noticed him do it before?’

‘Not to this extent,’ says Stamford, shaking his head. ‘Right, boys, new digs. Let’s hope we enjoy our stay.’

***

It doesn’t take long to settle in. That’s to say, it doesn’t take long for John to settle in and for Sherlock to alienate just about every single member of their new cell in various different ways.

Being in a real cell is very different from a training cell, John quickly discovers. There is less yelling and less ordering about. Instead, he and Sherlock are just expected to be where they need to be, on time and making a valuable contribution.

There are no lessons. These are replaced by a lot of discussions about strategies and tactics and plans and orders from above. John enjoys it, but there is little to actually do so he can tell that Sherlock is getting restless. 

John quickly resolves to keep any and all firearms as far away from his friend as possible.

‘One of our sister cells needs help,’ the leader of their cell announces one evening, a month or so after their arrival. ‘Any volunteers?’

John looks around at Sherlock. Of course he’s interested. Sherlock is constantly looking for new ways to entertain himself and his boredom is starting to peek.

‘Help with what?’ Sherlock asks.

The leader looks at him a little scornfully.

‘I wasn’t really talking to you and Watson,’ he says. ‘You’re too young and inexperienced.’

John feels Sherlock bristling beside him. Nothing is more likely to get Sherlock’s back up than being told he is not capable of doing something.

‘Help with what?’ he repeats determinedly.

The leader’s gaze becomes more evaluating. When he speaks, it’s through a rather heavily clenched jaw.

‘There’s a bomb plot,’ he announces, in a tone of voice which is clearly meant to be off-putting to Sherlock.

John stiffens minutely. Sherlock cannot get involved in a bombing. That cannot happen. Except that it just will, because that will not have been off-putting to Sherlock in the slightest. Sherlock would relish the challenge.

‘I’ll do it,’ says Sherlock firmly. ‘I’ll help. Where do I need to be and when?’

‘I’m not sure,’ the leader says slowly, glaring at Sherlock. ‘How old are you, fifteen?’

Someone sniggers.

‘I’m seventeen.’

It’s Sherlock’s turn to speak through gritted teeth this time.

‘Still too young,’ replies the leader dismissively.

‘I’m volunteering,’ Sherlock snaps. ‘No-one else wants to go, and I am volunteering. This is ridiculous.’

‘You just haven’t given anyone else a chance to speak,’ says the leader, his eyes getting narrower by the second.

‘Pah,’ Sherlock says. John feels a sudden wave of dread. He knows what is coming. ‘Would you like me to tell you the reasons why each and every one of these people sitting here is reluctant at best to go and participate in a bomb plot?’

‘Sherlock,’ John hisses, unable to help himself. ‘Not now.’

‘Not going to take lover-boy with you, then?’ the leader asks, looking at John for the first time. 

There is something mocking in his tone which makes John’s stomach clench. He normally likes the man, but this is unfair. He supposes he cannot blame him for getting annoyed with Sherlock, but still.

‘You lot are so wilfully obtuse,’ Sherlock is saying. ‘John and I are not lovers. He is not my boyfriend. Anyone with half a brain can see that.’

‘Sherlock!’ John glares at him furiously. ‘Shut up, now.’

The leader of the Lucky Cat is glaring at Stamford angrily, as if it’s all his fault. At least he’s not blaming John this time.

‘Yep,’ Stamford is saying, slightly apologetically. ‘He’s always like this.’

In the end, John rather suspects that it is agreed that Sherlock will go and assist with the bomb plot purely so that the leader can have a break from him. This, John concedes, may well have been Sherlock’s plan in the first place.

He doesn’t talk to Sherlock as they head back to their room after the impromptu meeting, but John knows that Sherlock must be feeling the disapproval radiating from him. He appreciates that Stamford heads outside ‘for a cigarette’ rather than accompanying them back to their room.

‘You’re unhappy,’ Sherlock states, the instant the door swings shut behind them.

‘Am I?’ John replies flippantly. ‘That’s a good deduction, yeah. Thanks for that.’

‘You think I shouldn’t be involved in blowing anyone up.’

‘You’re not usually one for stating the bloody obvious,’ John snaps.

‘I thought it needed saying,’ Sherlock shrugs. ‘Go ahead, have a rant. I can see you’re bursting to and you may as well get it out of your system while Stamford is pretending to smoke cigarettes that he doesn’t even own.’

‘You’re going to kill innocent people,’ says John in a low voice. He refuses to look at Sherlock.

‘I’m going to kill Crosses,’ Sherlock corrects him. ‘According to many noughts, no Crosses are innocent because they are complicit in our oppression.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ replies John angrily. ‘And you know it. I’ve met Crosses who are incredibly supportive of our situation. Not every Cross is automatically a wanker, you know. Or do you? Have you ever actually bothered to find that out? No, what you’re going to do, Sherlock, is kill people’s husbands and wives and people’s parents. I lost my dad, and so did you. You know how that feels. And now you’re going to inflict that on somebody else, deliberately.’

‘You’re really rather inconveniently moral for a terrorist,’ Sherlock comments casually. ‘Don’t you find yourself constantly at odds with yourself?’

‘Yes,’ John snaps. ‘I do. I hate that I have to do this, but there is no other choice. I want to live in a country where I am no better or no worse than anybody else, and blowing people up won’t achieve that.’

‘What do you propose, then?’ Sherlock enquires.

His voice is oh so calm, and John wants to hit him for it. Can’t Sherlock see how his words are much too close to home?

‘I don’t know,’ John suddenly sags. ‘I don’t even know if there is another way. But Sherlock, please don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.’

‘Someone’s got to do it, and I’m bored,’ says Sherlock, shrugging. ‘Seems like a pretty good solution to me.’

‘It doesn’t have to be you,’ John protests. 

He hates himself for it, just hates himself.

‘You don’t want to have to look at me if I do this,’ Sherlock announces suddenly. ‘You don’t want to be friends with a bomber.’

‘I don’t want innocent people to die,’ John corrects him snappishly, but deep down, he knows that Sherlock is right. He just doesn’t want to admit it to himself.

‘It’s to make the politicians take notice of us,’ Sherlock points out.

John finally looks up and meets Sherlock’s gaze. He knows that Sherlock doesn’t believe that any more than he does. And it would be a whole lot easier if he could make himself believe it.

‘You’re too young,’ John says suddenly, making one last-ditch attempt. ‘Seventeen is too young to be involved in a bomb plot.’

‘Au contraire, John,’ Sherlock replies, his eyes shining far too brightly for John’s liking. ‘Bomb making is just science. I could make them a chemical bomb if they wanted.’

‘A chemical bomb?’ John echoes, horrified. ‘Sherlock, please, don’t be silly. That’s just - ’

‘Relax, John, I was joking,’ Sherlock interrupts him. ‘But I could make one, you know,’ he adds as an afterthought.

John’s heart skips several beats.

‘Why on Earth do you know how to do that?’ John demands.

‘I got bored as a kid, I’ve told you,’ Sherlock shrugs. ‘The scorch marks are still on the surface of my desk. At least, I assume they are. The desk might not even be there anymore.’

This gives John pause. He is quite sure that is own mother will not have altered a thing in his own room. Come to think of it, it’s quite possible that Harry sleeps there every night.

‘You are not going to offer to make a chemical bomb,’ John says firmly, pulling himself back to the present.

‘Like I said, I was joking.’

‘But you’re not joking about getting involved.’

It’s not a question.

‘I’ll think about,’ Sherlock replies eventually.

Both John and Sherlock know what that really means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to upload this chapter a day or two ago but I sort of ended up in hospital :/ It's therefore a little later than I intended and I'm sorry about that!


	8. The Hand of Mycroft

**November 2001**

Sherlock loves it, just loves it. Halfway through August, on the first anniversary of his joining the LM, he finds himself crammed in a back of a shoddy van travelling south at a fairly rapid pace. Up front are the two leaders of his temporary cell for the next few months, the one in need of more manpower for their assigned bomb plot. Sherlock has no interest in being manpower. He just hasn’t let on about that yet.

‘What’s your name, kiddo?’ one of the blokes in the front shouts over the blare of the radio.

‘Holmes.’

‘What? Speak up, kiddo.’

He resents being referred to like that, he really does.

‘Holmes.’

‘Holmes, right,’ says the driver. ‘And how old are you?’

‘Seventeen,’ replies Sherlock reluctantly. He hates revealing this fact to people before they have had the chance to learn anything else about him. And just because he can, he adds, ‘And a half.’

‘Not so much a kid as a baby then!’

Sherlock grinds his teeth together, thankful that they cannot hear him over both the radio and the roar of the engine. Still, this is nothing. He’d put up with a lot worse than this to try and stave off the impending boredom that is tactical planning with no real prospects of any of their plans coming to fruition any time soon.

So, put up with the taunting and teasing about his age and his height and his hair he does, and he is rewarded with the temporary membership of a cell which is a hive of activity and excitement. For two months, Sherlock is barely bored once, save for the nights where he lies on his lumpy bed staring up at a ceiling which he can’t see. 

During the day and some of the nights, Sherlock throws himself into a frenzy of planning and recces and tactical discussions, which he quickly discovers are a lot more stimulating if the results are actually tangible. He dons several different disguises to go and scout out the location - the London headquarters of business owned by a prominent Cross in the movement that is subtly trying to prevent nought equality. Initially, Sherlock is one of a small number of people sent on these excursions, but his talent for disguise, his keen observation skills and his ability to blend in with pretty much anything and anybody is quickly recognised. Soon, he is sent alone.

Sherlock loves it. He is not bored. He learns a lot about who arrives when and who are the important people to target - the people that they must ensure will be caught up in the blast. He names people who the cell did not even know existed and they are at first sceptical about his information, but a quick burst of communication with ‘them upstairs’ clears things up rapidly. Sherlock finds the other members of the cell looking at him with new respect after this.

The more practical side of the plot is also enjoyable. Sherlock is good with his hands thanks to his childhood violin lessons, and his mind is such that he doesn’t need reminding of the skills that he learnt in the Criterion. Again, the people around him are impressed. The jibes about his age start losing strength a bit.

All the while Sherlock is busy he doesn’t have to think about anything else, but when he’s been sent to bed (‘For God’s sake, Holmes, lie down before you fall down!’) and his brain is slowly winding down from processing the events of the day, he can’t help but picture John’s disapproving face. It’s slightly disconcerting, because he’s never worried about anyone’s disapproval before, and goodness only knows Mycroft’s always had enough of it to go around.

It’s also in these quiet moments that Sherlock finds that he is… _aware_ of John’s absence. Not missing him, obviously, because that would be silly, but the thing is that they’ve barely spent twelve hours apart in the last year since they met. John not being present now simply goes against the status quo, and Sherlock is suddenly finding himself to be a very firm believer in upholding the status quo in certain situations. 

As D-Day approaches, John’s disapproving expression becomes ever clearer in Sherlock’s mind and Sherlock subsequently becomes more effective at blocking it out. He doesn’t want to know.

Sherlock is going to London. A month or so ago, the orchestrators of this plot would have laughed at the very idea of it, but they know better now. Sherlock will be the one to sneak into the offices and plant the bomb. He knows that his skills are useful, but he is not naïve about the fact that he is also viewed as being infinitely more expendable than some. Whoever actually carries the bombs is the one in danger - if they are caught, the rest are well trained enough to be able to sneak off into the crowd. Sherlock isn’t keen on getting hanged for his troubles, but he’s fairly confident that he won’t be. Anyone can walk in anywhere if they pick the right moment. 

As happy as he is with the arrangements, Sherlock cannot help but think how John would react if he knew that Sherlock is not only involved in the plot, but is going to be the one to lay the explosives. He won’t be the one with his finger on the detonator switch, but still. Sherlock tries hard to think of something else.

In the week leading up to the event, nervousness begins to emerge and people get jittery. Small arguments erupt over the pettiest of matters and nerves are clearly frayed. Sherlock is unaffected by all of this. He calmly goes about his business, revelling in the activity and in being able to deduce precisely what it is that is upsetting each of his co-conspirators, both the actual and the temporary members of the Black Lotus Cell. There are bombs to assemble and train times to check and tube routes to finalise and Sherlock laps it up. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

‘Sir,’ one of the youngest members of the cell asks, three nights before the final trip to London. He’s been one of the most anxious in the past few days. ‘Do you think there’s any chance the government knows about the bomb, Sir?’

There is pause. Suddenly, everyone wants to know the answer to the question that they haven’t been allowing themselves to think about. Everyone except Sherlock, who of course has been thinking about it and has already reached his own conclusions.

‘Anything’s possible,’ is the casual reply. ‘They might do. They might not. They might care. They might not. If there’s been communication, and there has, then there’s always a chance that someone else knows. But we haven’t been stopped yet, so I say not.’

***

The intercepted email is open on his screen. He intercepted it himself, of course. Can’t trust anyone else with something like this, and now he can see that it’s a good job he didn’t. Not that they’d listen to him, anyway.

His head is pounding. There is no way he can pull this off on his own. He has two choices. He can risk his job and his ideas and his potential and his own damn freedom and, possibly, the foreseeable future for all noughts in the country, or he can risk _him_. There is no choice. He sets off at as close a thing to a run as he allows himself. 

***

It all goes so smoothly, until they actually arrive. The train into London is not an issue - it’s a journey that Sherlock at least has done many times before anyway - and they hop on and off underground trains, switching between lines as often as possible just as they had planned.

It’s when they reach the offices that things start to go wrong. Sherlock is dressed, exactly as planned, in the uniform that the office cleaners wear. He knows when shifts change over and who walks in and out in groups and who goes alone and who is friendly enough and stupid enough that he could tag along and chat with them until he’s deep inside the building. Of course, all this information is utterly useless if they can’t get anywhere near the building.

As soon as they turn onto the right road, Sherlock knows it is no good. There is a heavy security presence around the building. It’s nothing that would draw your attention if you’re not Sherlock Holmes, but it’s real and it’s there. It takes the two men accompanying Sherlock a while longer to cotton on. When they do, they almost stop dead in their tracks. Sherlock, a little further ahead on the pavement, has stopped to inspect the window of a jewellery shop attentively.

Sherlock’s heart is hammering. There is only one possible person who can be responsible for this. If the government as a whole knew about this, then that would be by way of intercepting emails. If they had intercepted emails then they should have been able to infer more than just the general vicinity and timing of the bomb. The emails were encoded, but the government have people who can break these things.

No, this can only be due to the actions of one man. The security, very much there but not at all intimidating to passers-by, and the lack of any security announcements on the tube and on the news means only one thing - these are the actions of a man who wants to stop the bomb, but who doesn’t want those responsible for it to get caught. There is only one person who falls into that category and also has the wherewithal to orchestrate such an undertaking. 

Betrayal, hot and thick, bubbles in Sherlock’s stomach. Always, always interfering. 

There is nothing else for it. Sherlock finishes blindly examining a display of watches and turns and walks back down the road, careful to ensure that his jacket stops his uniform from being too obvious. He doesn’t look back, but he knows that his two companions are lingering. If it wouldn’t attract so much attention, they would shout after him and ask him where he thinks he’s going. 

And what an idiotic question that is. There is no way that this is going ahead. A certain someone has seen to that. If it takes his bosses longer than him to ascertain this fact, then that’s not Sherlock’s problem. They catch up with him as he descends the steps to the third closest tube station to the offices.

‘We didn’t check around the back,’ a voice growls in Sherlock’s ear, getting close on the pretext of passing Sherlock his tube ticket.

‘Pointless,’ Sherlock replies, equally quietly. ‘If they’ve bothered with all those people around the front, do you really think they’re going to forget to station a couple of people to ensure that no-one gets in through the fire exits? Anyway, I can’t get in that way. I told you - it’s not about sneaking in, it’s about looking like you belong.’

_And having a leadership role in the Liberation Militia should really, really mean that you know this._

‘Well if it’s all about that,’ the voice hisses angrily. ‘Why didn’t you just march in through the front door with everyone else?’

‘They’ll be asking for ID,’ Sherlock says dismissively. 

They’re on the escalators now, so Sherlock’s height advantage - which means that people normally can’t speak right into his ear - is completely diminished.

‘And that wasn’t going to be an issue anyway? You’re the one who did all the scouting - you should’ve told us useful stuff like that instead of banging on about rubbish.’

‘They don’t normally ask for ID, but they will be today.’

Sherlock reaches the bottom of the escalator and strides off in the direction of the nearest platform, not caring where it takes him.

His two companions swing onto the train behind him.

‘How do you know?’

The question is asked in a normal tone. It could be about anything, after all.

‘Obvious.’

‘And you didn’t want to get close enough to check?’

_Oh yes, because that’s not suspicious at all._

Sherlock’s second companion, who is yet to speak, lays a hand on the arm of the first.

‘Leave it,’ he warns.

There is quiet authority in his tone, and Sherlock is reminded that he is actually the more senior of the two. It’s seldom obvious.

The rest of the roundabout trip to the mainline station and the subsequent journey out of London - a little earlier than planned - are conducted in silence. There is no hint that anyone around them is on the alert because of a potential bomb threat. It’s a good job that the foil of their plan was thought up by someone who knows Sherlock so well.

At the other end of their journey - a different station to the one they used to catch their first train of the day - the van is waiting for them. The lack of any reports on the news means that of course they know that something has gone wrong.

‘They knew,’ the driver of the van is informed as soon as all the doors are slammed shut. ‘Don’t know how, but they did. No warnings issued though, as you must know - just heavy security around the offices that would have made it impossible to get in.’

‘Even for Holmes?’

Sherlock’s knack for disguises has become more than a bit of a running joke in recent weeks. Even normally he doesn't appreciate it, but today he’s really not in the mood.

‘Even for Holmes,’ the leader confirms.

***

When he is dropped back at the base of the Lucky Cat Cell a couple of nights later, Sherlock firmly tells himself several times that he is not bothered about seeing John. Why should he be? No. Definitely not.

John knows, of course. Everyone knows. But unlike everyone else, John doesn’t ask questions. John doesn’t even come out to meet him when he arrives. Once he is free of everyone else and their moronic queries, Sherlock finds John where he knew he would be - perched on the end of his bed in the room that they share with Stamford.

John looks up when the door opens.

‘Hi,’ he says briefly. His expression is blank.

‘Stamford is having a cigarette,’ Sherlock replies, by way of a greeting. ‘Although I’m not sure who he thinks he’s kidding. He clearly doesn’t smoke. I should know.’

‘So,’ John says, continuing as if he hasn’t heard Sherlock. ‘Good journey?’

Sherlock tips his head to one side, puzzled. Is John making small talk?

‘Ye-es,’ he says slowly.

‘Good,’ John answers, before dropping into silence.

Sherlock fidgets uncomfortably. Normally, he’d take silence over mindless chatter any day, but this is different. He doesn’t know what to do and that in and of itself is disconcerting.

‘I’m not going to pretend that I’m not glad about it,’ John suddenly speaks up, after several tense minutes. His voice is a little harsher than normal. ‘But I won’t go on about it. You must be upset.’

‘Upset?’ Sherlock scoffs indignantly. ‘I’m not upset.’

John’s expression clearly begs to differ.

‘Annoyed then,’ he amends quietly, his face suggesting that he still prefers his previous assessment.

Sherlock inclines his head. Annoyance he will permit.

‘Don’t you want to know what happened then?’ he challenges.

The best form of defence is offence.

‘I know what happened,’ John blinks up at him owlishly. ‘I don’t need you to tell me.’

‘Everyone else seemed to want to know,’ Sherlock says, a little more snappishly than he intended.

‘Well, I know enough,’ shrugs John. ‘So you don’t need to tell me anything.’

The fact that John is doing this as a kindness to him strikes Sherlock a blow in his chest. He finds himself experiencing an emotion that is so unfamiliar that it takes him a good half a minute to put a name to it - gratitude.

‘Well, good,’ Sherlock stumbles a little over the words. ‘Because I have had quite enough of spelling things out for morons.’

‘I’m sure you have.’

Is that a little half smile on John’s face? 

Sherlock blinks. Then he walks slowly over to his bed, dropping his bag in the middle of the floor on the way.

‘Sherlock,’ John says, gently chiding.

‘Oh, you’re worse than my mother,’ Sherlock snaps. There is no heat in his tone.

‘Well I’m bloody glad that I’m not your mother,’ John retaliates in the same fashion. ‘Imagine being responsible for you.’

‘I don’t need anyone to be responsible for me. I can take care of myself.’

‘Of course you can.’

Nothing more is spoken for several minutes. Sherlock picks up his bag again and fiddles with the zip, before opening it and poking through the contents morosely. John leaves the room, presumably to go to the toilet. When he comes back, he strips down to his t-shirt and underwear, clearly getting ready for bed.

‘It’s late,’ he says needlessly. ‘You must be tired. Go to bed.’

‘I’m never tired,’ Sherlock counters him, chucking his still full bag across the room.

‘Stamford’s taking his time,’ John comments, climbing into bed and raising his eyebrows at Sherlock’s flying possessions.

‘Maybe he’s picked up a twenty-a-day habit in the time I’ve been gone.’

Sherlock sees John’s lips twitch. He’s somewhat surprised to realise that his own are mimicking the action without his consent.

‘Back in a minute,’ Sherlock says abruptly.

When he returns, the light is still on and John’s eyes are still open.

‘Joining Stamford for the twentieth of the day?’ John asks.

‘He’ll be in shortly,’ Sherlock informs him, lying down on top of his bed fully clothed. ‘He said not to bother waiting - he can find his way around in the dark.’

‘And you couldn’t have said that and then switched the light off before you lay down?’

Sherlock doesn’t bother to reply. John sighs, before getting out of bed to turn the light off. He almost falls over Sherlock’s bag on the way back to his bed and Sherlock is treated to another round of sighing, along with some muffled swearing.

John’s bed creaks and groans as he lies down again and then wriggles a bit to get comfy. There is silence for a while. Neither of them is asleep, and they both know it.

‘It’s good to have you back, you know.’

Sherlock almost smiles into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I hope people are enjoying this. My exams are getting closer and I am getting busier, but I'm going to keep updating. Updates will just be slightly more infrequent than I normally try and aim for now. Sorry!


	9. The Consulting Criminal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, let me apologise for the long break. To be honest, I will be quite amazed if anyone's really interested in reading this anymore. I had a long period of revision and exams and then some time off after my exams finished and now I am ready to write again. But sorry for the massive gap.
> 
> Here is a new chapter. It could also be known as ‘The Chapter In Which I Try Very Hard Indeed To Reign In My Impulse To Talk About Evolutionary Biology Too Much’ (yes, I am a biology student). I thought the other title was probably catchier, although this one may be more accurate. I hope you enjoy.

**January 2002**

_‘Today, just a matter of days away from the end of the year, an announcement was made which will ensure that the year 2001 will go down in history as Darren Rothschild was revealed as the first ever nought member of parliament. The MP, whose constituency is in rural South West England, said today in a statement from outside the House of Commons that he was absolutely delighted with the result. His statement read - “I am thrilled and honoured to have the chance for serving my country as the first nought MP this country has ever seen. I would like to thank everyone from my constituency who voted for me and believed in me. My priorities of course focus around the important and topical issue of nought rights, and I am excited by the prospect of being able to influence the progression of this country towards equality.”_

_‘The Liberation Militia released a statement shortly afterwards in support of Rothschild, but they were careful to reiterate that this country has a long way to go before it reaches equality for noughts. Several vocal Cross organisations have spoken out against the election of Rothschild, saying that noughts have no right to be running the country.’_

‘D’you hear that, Sherlock?’ John calls. ‘The first ever nought MP. Blimey, I was beginning to think I wouldn’t live to see the day.’

‘Of course I heard,’ Sherlock replies irritably. ‘I’m not deaf; I just choose to be upon occasion. And don’t be fooled, John, this is hardly a matter for celebration.

But it’s good, isn’t it?’ John says optimistically. ‘A nought in parliament has got to be a good thing.’

‘Don’t be naïve,’ Sherlock sneers. ‘It’s a ruse. He’ll accomplish nothing, as we all know, and he’s just someone for Crosses to put up on a pedestal so they can say “He’s made it, now why can’t the rest of you?”. It’s clever; you’ve got to give them that.’

‘You mean if they allow one nought to make it, then they can blame the rest of us because we can’t,’ John realises slowly.

‘Exactly,’ Sherlock nods grimly. ‘If one nought can do it, then it can’t be the system at fault. If one nought can do it, then the fact that no other noughts can just proves that the vast majority of us are fools who need to be oppressed for our own good. It’s not the fault of the Crosses - they want us to succeed, but we’re barely a step above apes so we’re not capable.’

‘I find it hard to believe that people actually think like that,’ John mutters.

‘The vast majority of Crosses don’t,’ Sherlock says with a frown. ‘Well, a majority anyway. I’m not sure about “vast”. A lot of them think we’re inferior, obviously, but that kind of view is extreme. No, the problem is that a lot of the people who actually matter do think like that.’

‘And they call us the apes,’ John scowls. ‘That’s primitive thinking if there ever was such a thing.’

‘Well of course it is,’ says Sherlock. ‘You’ve seen photos of Sebastian Moran, haven’t you? Ape-like barely begins to cover it.’

‘Sebastian who?’ frowns John. The name is familiar.

‘Some government meathead,’ Sherlock says, reaching over and flicking through one of his files before holding a photograph up for John’s inspection. ‘Recognise him?’

‘Yes,’ John nods slowly. ‘Who exactly is he?’

‘Let’s just say he has far too great a power to intelligence ratio,’ Sherlock sniffs, sounding as usual as if he’s swallowed several textbooks. How he sounds like this when he barely went to school beyond the age of eleven is beyond John.

‘Well, okay,’ John concedes. ‘Maybe what’s-his-name, Rothschild, doesn’t stand much of a chance against the likes of Moran, but they allowed him to get elected. That’s got to mean something.’

‘Again, you display all the naivety of a five-year-old, John,’ Sherlock sighs disparagingly. ‘They let him win because they wanted him to. They want a puppet, like I said. Just look at his constituency.’

‘Somewhere in the West Country, isn’t it?’ John frowns.

‘Rural Devon,’ Sherlock confirms. ‘Full of noughts, so he’s bound to get elected, but with very little influence over anything at all. It’s perfect for them. Make no mistake; any nought MP is only going to be there because the likes of Moran say he can be there. If they wanted a nought in parliament who was actually going to help change things, they’d have found one to represent one of the inner-city London areas. This is a ruse. Don’t be fooled.’

***

A week or so later, John wakes up to Sherlock prodding him. As usual, his friend seems not to need any sleep at all.

‘Whazzamatter?’ John mumbles, rolling over and throwing an arm over his face defensively.

‘John,’ Sherlock is saying persistently. ‘John. You want to hear this.’

The low hum of the radio which John has been becoming slowly aware of is suddenly converted in a blast of noise straight into his ear.

‘Bloody hell, Sherlock!’

John scrambles away as fast as possible, instantly wide awake.

‘Ah, that’s better,’ says Sherlock, turning the radio down to more socially acceptable levels. ‘Listen.’

‘You’re listening to the radio?’ John frowns, his brain still catching up. ‘You don’t do that.’

‘Oh, excellent John,’ Sherlock replies sarcastically. ‘Spectacular job. Good observation.’

‘Why is the radio even in here?’ John asks. ‘It’s not our radio; it’s everyone’s radio. You can’t just nick it whenever you feel like it!’

‘Can’t I?’ says Sherlock vaguely. ‘Oh. Well. Listen to this. You’ll want to hear it.’

‘What _are_ you babbling about?’

‘Well you’d know if you’d just shut up and listen,’ Sherlock says sternly.

Blankets clutched around him, John shuts up and listens.

_‘ - terrible affront on the natural order of things. Noughts may not like it but it’s a fact of life - Crosses are superior and this should be respected. This new law is only serving to upset the balance of life as it has worked for hundreds of years. Why change a system that is functional? Now no-one knows where they are. If a Cross gets on a bus and finds it full, should they have to stand? No they should not, but they may now not feel comfortable asking a nought to vacate their seat in the nought area of the bus. That is not how things should work. And as for the appointment of Darren Rothschild at the end of last year, I scarcely know where to begin. There are so many - ’_

The radio is shut off abruptly. John looks in some bemusement at his hand, which appears to have shot out and switched the radio off of its own accord.

‘I thought you be interested,’ Sherlock says mildly.

‘Interested?’ John spits. He is a little surprised to find that he is shaking with anger. This hasn’t happened in a long time. ‘I don’t get it, I just don’t. How anyone can actually believe that garbage is beyond me. Where these bloody Crosses get their superiority complexes from I do not know. I - ’

‘Oh, it’s even better than that,’ Sherlock says, wisely cutting off John’s tirade before he can really get into the swing of things. 

Something in Sherlock’s tone of voice makes John take notice rather than feel annoyed at missing out on continuing his rant. When Sherlock sounds that grim it usually means something serious.

‘What do you mean?’ John frowns. ‘What could possibly be worse than - ’

‘Shut up and I’ll tell you,’ Sherlock says irritably.

‘Go on then,’ John shoots back. The day has barely even begun but already he’s in no mood for pleasantries.

‘That man speaking, he’s not a Cross,’ Sherlock explains. ‘He’s a nought.’

John’s mouth falls open. What can he say to that?

‘A nought,’ he eventually chokes out. ‘What do you mean; he’s a nought?’

‘I mean that he is light-skinned and of Caucasian heritage,’ Sherlock replies. ‘That is the basic understanding of the term “nought”, is it not?’

‘Shut up,’ John says, with feeling. ‘He’s a _nought_?’

‘Just so I know,’ says Sherlock. ‘How long should I expect this mindless repetition to continue for? If I go and shower will you be content to sit here talking to yourself for a bit?’

_‘Shut up.’_

To John’s astonishment, Sherlock does.

After a moment, John reaches out and tentatively flicks the switch on the radio again.

_‘And after the weather we will have more on our main story - the backlash surrounding the new nought legislation banning segregation on public transport. But for now, Adam, what can you - ’_

John tunes out the meaningless words. There are noughts who don’t support equality. Noughts who don’t want equality. Noughts. There is a buzzing in his head.

‘Oi, Holmes!’

His half-hysterical ruminating is interrupted by a bang on the door.

‘What is it, Stamford?’ Sherlock calls.

John snaps back to reality and suddenly realises that the radio has been turned down to indecipherable levels. It takes him a worryingly long time to realise that Stamford has been on duty all night, hence why he’s not already in their room.

‘Have you got the bloody radio in with you again?’

‘Afraid not,’ Sherlock answers smoothly, before John can.

‘Hmm,’ is the suspicious reply. ‘Well, I can hear you talking from the other side of the building so get your arses out of bed and come and get breakfast.’

‘It’s not our turn,’ protests Sherlock, rightly surmising that John is not in any fit state to make a contribution to the conversation. ‘It’s your turn.’

‘Tough,’ says Stamford, from the other side of the door. ‘You’re younger than I am and I bloody well hate you for it, plus I’ve been up all night, so you can do it.’

‘Yes,’ John finds his voice suddenly, seeing that Sherlock is about to complain. ‘We will. Give us a minute.’

There is a pause.

‘You’re not bumming in there, are you?’

‘No!’ John yelps, before he can help it. 

Perched beside him on the edge of John’s bed, one of Sherlock’s eyebrows disappears into his hair. Not at Stamford’s question, John recognises in annoyance, but at his response.

‘It’s no problem if you are, boys,’ another voice joins Stamford’s. John groans. ‘Just tell us, and we’ll all make sure we give this door a wide berth after lights out.’

‘We are not having sex,’ John says firmly. ‘Now let me get up, Sherlock.’

‘Sure sounds like you’re not. I hope you don’t do that while I’m asleep in there.’

‘You’re not taking advantage of Holmes’ youthful innocence, are you Watson?’

‘I’m eighteen now, remember, and hardly innocent,’ Sherlock informs the voices in the corridor. ‘Now, John is blushing. For the sake of his delicate constitution, maybe you’d better leave.’

From the corridor come two differently-pitched laughs and then two sets of feet head off in opposite directions away from their room.

‘Oh God,’ John says instantly. ‘What did you go and do that for?’

‘Me?’ Sherlock blinks. ‘That wasn’t me.’

‘You couldn’t just have said that we’d come and do breakfast and have left it at that, then?’

‘That’s not what I would have normally said, no.’

‘And what would you have normally said?’ John enquires.

‘Piss off.’

There is a moment’s silence. They look at each other.

Suddenly, John finds himself shoving a fistful of blanket in his mouth to smother his giggles. Next to him, Sherlock is giggling to himself too. As John’s thought before, in the year and a half that he’s known Sherlock he hasn’t heard him laugh nearly enough. He might not be in the LM for quite the right reasons as far as John is concerned, but there’s no denying that being a nought wears anyone down. As this sobering thought strikes him, he looks up and catches Sherlock’s eye once more. It’s enough to make him give in to his laughter again.

‘Well,’ John says eventually, finally calming down again. ‘I’m certainly never inviting you into my bed if you have latent tendencies to tell everyone to piss off. That won’t do my ego any good at all.’

‘I was not aware you felt that way about me, John,’ Sherlock grins at him.

‘Ah, awkward, I don’t, I - ’

John stops short as Sherlock conjures the radio from wherever he had it hidden and that smarmy voice, already hateful after only one time of hearing it, breaks through his thoughts.

_‘ - clear that Crosses are biologically superior to noughts. It’s a fact that even the most ardent of nought rights supporters would find it difficult to argue with - Crosses are just better evolved than noughts. Take skin colour for example - having pale skin colour is an evolutionary disadvantage as regards sun damage and skin cancer, and therefore noughts are nothing more than mutants in this respect. The blue eyes which often go with pale skin are also more at risk of damage. I know many people will be wondering just what this has to do with the recent law, but let me put it like this - due to their superiority, Crosses do harder and more demanding jobs than noughts, so why should they not have a greater right to seats on public transport and more privileges all round? Put like that, it really is a no brainer. I - ’_

‘Forget about him, John,’ Sherlock says quietly, turning off the radio. ‘I’ll tell you about him later. Now, I believe we have some tedious chore to do and, as most people seem to deem eating to be of some importance, we’d better get on with it.’

***

‘James Moriarty is the sort of man that the Cross government officials love,’ Sherlock says sourly that evening. It’s the first chance they’ve had to speak since before breakfast.

‘But surely he doesn’t mean it?’ John asks, aghast. He looks across at Sherlock from where his is collapsed on his bed. ‘He can’t really approve of the oppression of his own race.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t care a bit,’ Sherlock says. ‘He’s got his own little, or actually rather large, empire of crime. He lives outside life’s normal rules so he doesn’t care about them. It makes no difference to him.’

‘Why does he say what he says then?’ John frowns. ‘He says horrible things about noughts, just horrible. We’re not mutants.’

‘We’re all mutants,’ Sherlock corrects him swiftly. ‘How do you think evolution works?’

‘I know how evolution works,’ John replies irritably. He is in no mood for Sherlock’s smart-arse comments and anyway, he doesn’t like being made to feel like an idiot. Just because he’s a nought it doesn’t mean he can’t educate himself, as Sherlock has clearly also done. ‘Do you have any idea how many biology textbooks I used to get out from the library?’

‘Interesting,’ Sherlock says, his eyes suddenly narrowed speculatively.

‘What’s interesting?’ John demands, suddenly feeling rather exposed. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about that nought tosser, not me. Why does he do it?’

‘Money,’ Sherlock shrugs. ‘Or most likely, power. If he goes around telling all noughts that they should just submit meekly to Cross authority - as he pretends to do himself - because Crosses know what is best for us, then those very Crosses are going to just love him, aren’t they? They’ll do anything to keep him happy. James Moriarty is one of the most powerful men in the whole of the United Kingdom at this time. Anything he wants, anything at all, and all he has to do is find the right man and the right method of extracting what he wants from that man. If the person he’s dealing with had a relative murdered by a nought during the riot years, then all he has to do is promise to publicly proclaim that the death penalty should remain in place for noughts because, as a race, we are far more violent than Crosses and need to be controlled with the threat of the death penalty. It’s child’s play for him. He does this and he gets what he wants every time, so what does he care about the suffering and the oppression of his fellow noughts?’

‘So is he fooling the Crosses?’ John asks.

‘I highly doubt it,’ Sherlock says, looking somewhat thoughtful. ‘Not all of our government are morons, John, although I will admit it does often seem that way. No, some of them must know what he’s up to. He’s probably got a couple of MPs right in his pocket. The rest obviously just don’t care. And why should they? Nought affairs, after all.’

‘What does he actually do then, apart from mouth off about how great Crosses are and how we should all worship them on bended knee?’

‘Anything you like, if you pay him enough,’ Sherlock replies. ‘Plant a bomb, arrange a kidnapping, arrange an assassination, whatever you want.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about him,’ John says slowly.

‘I considered joining him,’ answers Sherlock casually, as John’s jaw drops. ‘Oh come on, John, is that really so surprising? We both know that my morals are rather flexible at best, and given that you’re in the Liberation Militia you can’t exactly preach at me about right and wrong.’

‘The LM does things for a reason,’ John protests. ‘And anyway, I don’t get much involved in that side of things, you know that. This Moriarty guy just sounds like he does all this for fun, because he can.’

‘Oh he does,’ Sherlock assures him. ‘He enjoys the power I’m sure, but it’s mostly just for his entertainment. It stops him from being bored. I can sympathise, so I researched him. He’s got a brilliant mind; one really can’t help but admire it.’

‘I’m not going to admire anyone who tells me that my place is below Crosses,’ John says hotly.

‘No,’ Sherlock concedes. ‘Nor am I, because it isn’t. Moriarty is quite wrong with his little evolution speech, and what’s more is that he knows it too. There’s no way he believes that rubbish. He’s a clever man and I only meant that I cannot help but admire the mind. I don’t admire the choices that the mind makes, but the fact remains that he is quite brilliant. He’s almost as brilliant as me, in fact. And he causes trouble because he’s bored. I can understand.’

John is still looking at Sherlock sceptically, so Sherlock tries again.

‘Come on, John,’ he says. ‘You know why I got into this - I was bored out of my mind and my status as a nought meant I was not at liberty to indulge in the things which would entertain me. That needed changing, so I joined the LM. Moriarty was another option and not, you will notice, the one I chose. On my quest to be able to obtain the means to relieve my boredom, I chose the method that would incidentally help people rather than hindering them.’

‘Hindering them?’ John splutters. ‘Yes, a kidnapping or an assassination is a bit of a hindrance, as they go.’

Sherlock looks at him.

‘You’re taking this information rather badly.’

John splutters again. Of course he is.

‘Of course I am,’ he says. ‘Why wouldn’t I? I can’t believe you even considered joining that traitorous maniac.’

‘Try and understand what it’s like to be me,’ Sherlock says, by way of reply. John tips his head to one side sharply. This has better be good. ‘All my life I have been bored. Nothing has ever interested me. I need stimulation; stimulation that is not available to me purely because I am a nought. If I had been born a Cross, I would have had the best schooling and the best universities as possibilities, but more than that, I would have been able to go about my business as I wished, finding the things that really interested me and indulging that interest. Until I joined the LM, my brain was constantly screaming in protest at being underused. Now, it’s a lot better. I get stimulation here. It’s not the stimulation I would choose if I had a choice, but it does for now. I could have got that stimulation if I had joined Moriarty. I’m a selfish person, more so than you can imagine with your remarkably selfless ways, especially for someone who is still a teenager. I chose the LM in the end, but I was going crazy at home and if joining Moriarty was the only way for me to escape, I would have done it without hesitation or guilt.’

‘But he’s such a terrible person,’ John whispers. He can see, but he can’t understand.

‘I’m not a good person either,’ Sherlock replies matter-of-factly. ‘You’re a good person. You care. But caring has led you to a terrorist organisation. Is caring all it’s really cracked up to be?’

‘Yes,’ says John staunchly. 

‘Hmm,’ Sherlock says, much to John’s vexation. How can his friend not care about others in the same position as himself?

‘Other people suffer like you do, remember,’ John points out mulishly. ‘It’s not just you. You’re not that special.’

‘No-one goes through what I go do,’ Sherlock answers simply. ‘Everyone else in the world is too idiotic to get as bored as me. They’re entertained by banal, simple pleasures.’

John’s mouth falls open. 

_Really, Sherlock?_

‘Just because other people aren’t as clever as you, it doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same chances,’ John snaps. ‘If you think like that then you’re as bad as all the Crosses who say that we’re not worthy of the same rights because our skin is a different colour.’

‘You’re taking my words out of context,’ Sherlock replies smoothly.

‘Am not,’ John fires back. It’s childish of him but he can’t quite bring himself to care.

‘I didn’t join Moriarty,’ Sherlock points out. ‘I could have done, and I didn’t. I chose not to. I’m here. Isn’t that enough?’

John frowns. He doesn’t voice what he’s thinking.

_I don’t know, Sherlock. I don’t know._


	10. Caught in the Crossfire

**March 2002**

Six years. That’s what it took for Mycroft to develop a stable working relationship with his boss which led to the productivity and mutual respect to which he’s become accustomed. Of course, the first year was hard, having to prove his worth and loyalty by running around doing menial chores - and how he’d hated that - but the consequences were worth it. Six years of work which come crashing down around his ears when he finds his boss dead in his office.

The police say it’s suicide. Mycroft knows it’s not. The police know this, too.

‘Classic signs,’ the detective sergeant says, bending over the body in an evaluating manner.

_Yes,_ thinks Mycroft, _the classic signs of a struggle. Papers dislodged on the desk, marks on the carpet where the desk has been knocked out of place and then moved back, signs of bruising around the neck where Millfield’s collar has been pulled tight to subdue him._

Mycroft only knows this because he’s the one who discovered the body. Before calling security, he made a very quick but thorough examination of the crime scene for himself. Now, standing silently outside the door, he can picture the things that the detective is pointing out as clearly as if he were in the room.

Everything about the crime scene, everything, screams murder. The weapon is in the wrong place for it to have fallen from Millfield’s limp hand, the angle of the splatter pattern on the wall is all wrong, as is the distribution of blood on Millfield’s body and the surrounding furniture. Someone broke into the office and, after a struggle which can only have been brief otherwise Mycroft would have heard, shot his boss elsewhere in the room with a silenced gun before moving the body to its current location. This is the only explanation of all the facts. The gun found at the scene will not match up with the ballistics report, if they even bother to do one.

‘Did anyone hear a shot?’ one of the constables inside the office is asking.

‘Who was around?’ the sergeant inquires.

‘No-one was in this morning,’ one of Millfield’s colleagues, who has been drafted in to provide relevant information such as this, replies helpfully. ‘James always liked to come in early with his staff and get some work done before meetings started.’

There is a moment of contemplative silence. Mycroft braces himself.

‘The boy is his?’ the detective inspector, who has been silent up until this point, asks.

‘Yes.’

In the ten seconds before the lapel of his jacket is seized, Mycroft considers that many Crosses have yet to leave behind the way of thinking which states that noughts are still slaves and therefore someone else’s property.

He is dragged into Millfield’s office unceremoniously. He would have come if they’d only bothered to ask.

‘Did you hear a gunshot?’ the sergeant demands, without as much as a preliminary hello. Property, just property.

‘No, Sir,’ Mycroft replies truthfully. Of course he didn’t. The perpetrator would have had a silencer.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘And you actually were at your desk this morning?’ the sergeant asks, something of a sneer in his tone of voice. ‘You weren’t shirking your duties?’

‘I never shirk my duties, Sir.’

That one earns him a sharp clip around the ear like he’s five years old. He cannot find it in himself to regret his words, though.

‘It’s not like anything he has to say really matters, anyway,’ says the inspector dismissively. ‘It’ll never hold up.’

Mycroft would marvel at the casual racism, but the inspector is only stating the truth. It wouldn’t hold up.

‘Noughts have been allowed to testify in court for thirty years, Sir,’ one of the constable frowns.

They have, for all the difference it ever makes.

‘Are you quite sure it wasn’t him, Sir?’ the second constable asks suddenly, addressing his DI. He’s barely older than Mycroft. ‘Murdered his Cross boss, that sort of thing.’

‘How much access did he have to this room?’ the sergeant asks Millfield’s colleague, who is looking at Mycroft appraisingly through narrowed eyes.

‘Oh, James trusted the lad,’ the man says slowly. ‘I don’t know the nature of the working relationship myself, but James was an astute man and he must have had his reasons.’

And they’re back to discussing Mycroft as if he’s not in the room or, worse, as if he doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand what they’re saying. It angers him, but he’s too used to this treatment to let it show. He supposes he should be more worried - it wouldn’t exactly be the first time a nought has been accused of a crime that hasn’t a chance in hell of being committed by them - but he cannot bring himself to summon up the effort for any kind of significant concern. He’s too drained.

‘What does he even _do_?’

The question, so clearly sceptical of Mycroft’s ability to be useful in any capacity whatsoever, cuts through to Mycroft’s consciousness.

‘General assistant,’ Millfield’s colleague says casually. ‘Runs errands, files papers, fetches tea, writes up notes, that sort of thing.’

_Proposes ideas for bills, carries out important research, advises Millfield, comes up with the best phrasing for the bills, makes sure all the loopholes are covered, that sort of thing._ Mycroft composes his own list in his head.

‘Why does he have a nought for all that?’ the suspicious constable queries. ‘It’s a lot less trouble to have a Cross employee, surely?’

‘I imagine it’s cheaper,’ Millfield’s colleague explains, not bothering to aim for a delicate tone of voice for Mycroft’s benefit.

Mycroft cannot really complain about that reasoning. He’s right.

_And I’m better than any Cross assistant he could have had,_ he thinks. It brings him a strange, savage kind of pride to know that Millfield knew that. Millfield knew his worth, and the fact that this group of people are standing here casually talking about how Mycroft must be no good only serves to prove that he really is very good indeed.

‘You know, Sir,’ the suspicious constable pipes up again. ‘I think we can discount this one. Look at him standing there with that gormless expression on his face - I don’t think he’s got the brains for it.’

_Either has an older father or has been brought up by a grandfather who fondly remembers the slave days and reminisces about them on a regular basis._

‘Suicide?’ says the sergeant.

‘Suicide,’ confirms the inspector.

That’s that, then.

***

Mycroft spends the rest of his day sat in his office, ignoring the hive of activity in Millfield’s office next door.

It’s wasted, all of it. All of his work. Three bills have gone through parliament in the last year and a half, which is more than enough to be thankful for, but there were so many more in the pipeline. He doesn’t need to find an excuse to look around Millfield’s office to know that all of the paperwork will be gone. Months of work are squandered, and, as of now, there is no prospect of being able to restore that.

Mycroft knows a lot of the nought rights supporters within the government. Many of them were friends of Millfield and knew Mycroft, or at least knew of his existence. The thing is, unless Mycroft has missed a lot of subtle hints, which seems unlikely, none of them know about the extent of Mycroft’s job. He knows that at least two or three of them, Fleming among them, have shrewd suspicions about his involvement in the formation of the three bills, but almost certainly no concrete proof.

What does he do now? What is his role now? He very much doubts that he’ll be able to find another boss who would be happy to give him as much freedom as Millfield did, and without that freedom he’ll have to resort to the subtle and underhand manipulation found in the legislature he’s helped to draft. That sort of manipulation is so much harder to pull off in person than it is to put down on paper, and Mycroft knows he hasn’t mastered that sufficiently yet. What’s he to do then? There is, after all, no guarantee that anyone will be prepared to take him on at all.

Fleming comes by the see him midway through the afternoon. It’s the first time anyone but Millfield has ever come to his door and he’s so surprised that, just for a moment, he forgets his predicament.

‘Sorry to hear about all this, Holmes,’ Fleming says, jerking his head at the wall which separates Mycroft’s office from that of his former boss.

Mycroft says nothing. There is nothing to say. Fleming doesn’t seem to mind.

‘Keeping your head down, eh?’ he carries on, eying Mycroft thoughtfully. ‘That’s probably wise. You don’t know what will happen to you know then, I suppose? I’d offer to take you on myself but my department just won’t run to it, I’m afraid.’

Mycroft stops himself from saying what he wants to say, which is that he’d work for the meagre price it costs him to keep himself in that filthy boarding house he calls home. Never mind food, he’d find some other way to pay for that. He restrains himself, though, because he knows it wouldn’t do any good and he has his pride. He is not going to beg. Fleming may be a faithful supporter of nought rights and he may even have something bordering on respect for Mycroft, but he doesn’t want the trouble of a nought in his office. Knowing the stick that Millfield took for it, Mycroft cannot really blame him.

‘Not got much to say for yourself today eh, Holmes?’ Fleming says, when Mycroft remains silent.

Mycroft unsticks his throat.

‘Sorry, Sir,’ he forces out. ‘It’s been a bit of a day, that’s all. Apologies.’

‘Understood,’ Fleming nods once.

Mycroft forces himself on.

‘And how is Alice?’ he asks, distinctly not caring about the answer.

‘Oh, just lovely,’ Fleming smiles happily. ‘Coming up for two now, if you would believe it, and with a little brother or sister on the way.’

Mycroft makes a polite noise in his throat. It’s getting harder to stop himself from pleading with Fleming to take him on. If he opens his mouth right now he’s not at all sure what might come spilling out.

Luckily, Fleming seems not to notice his inner turmoil.

‘I’d best be off,’ he announces. ‘Chin up, Holmes. Something good will come of this, you’ll see.’

Left alone once more, Mycroft allows himself to put his head in his hands. There is nothing good that can come of this, he is sure of it. He hasn’t just lost an employer and a mentor and a lot of hard work; he’s lost the protection that Millfield afforded him. There are many within government who are downright contemptuous of Mycroft and of the one other nought he’s met who is also employed as an assistant, but Millfield acted as a shield for him. He couldn’t stop the nasty remarks and hate-filled looks frequently sent Mycroft’s way, but no-one has done anything openly malicious since Millfield took him on. That’s gone now. All Mycroft can do is hope that he doesn’t run into Sebastian Moran any time soon, or whoever killed Millfield may well have signed Mycroft’s death warrant as well.

***

Two days after Millfield’s murder, Mycroft is summoned to the office of Millfield’s boss. He has never set foot anywhere near it before. The man behind the desk is intimidating in the extreme and Mycroft smoothes the front of his jacket in a nervous gesture that he managed to shake four years ago.

He is not offered a seat. He is not even offered a glass of water. He is not asked how he is coping after the apparent suicide of his boss. He stands under the scrutinising stare of the man before him and tries not to twitch.

‘Things to discuss,’ Peter Whitman announces abruptly by way of a greeting, having looked Mycroft up and down silently for a good two minutes.

Mycroft nods. He doesn’t trust that if he opens his mouth his normal, confident but respectful voice will emerge from it.

‘I’ve being talking to people about you, erm, what’s your name?’

‘Holmes, Sir,’ Mycroft replies hastily. His voice is higher and croakier than usual, but thankfully remains steady.

‘Well, yes, whatever,’ Whitman says dismissively. ‘The point is that I’ve been talking about you to people. Most reports appear to be favourable, apart from the obvious.’

_Apart from the fact that I am a nought, you mean,_ Mycroft thinks savagely. Out loud, he says, ‘I’m glad to hear that, Sir.’

‘Do you want another position within the government?’ Whitman asks him suddenly.

‘Yes, Sir,’ Mycroft replies carefully, taking great trouble to keep his eyes downcast respectfully. ‘If one can be found that would be most agreeable.’

‘“If one can be found that would be most agreeable”,’ Whitman mocks him in a poor imitation of Mycroft’s voice. ‘Tell me, boy, did it take a lot of effort to master speaking like you’ve got a pole up your arse?’

It did, actually. And now Whitman knows what he himself sounds like. 

Mycroft sensibly says nothing.

‘I have found you another position within this department,’ Whitman says, leering slightly at Mycroft. ‘A good deal of time and effort has been invested on my behalf - ’ by which Mycroft knows he means he glanced at a list and picked a name off it at random ‘ - so I expect you to take full advantage of this, boy. Many others in your situation would have found themselves out on their ear, do you hear me? I expect gratitude, hard work and, above all, obedience.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ Mycroft replies readily. ‘I’m very grateful.’

And he is, it’s just that he’s going to refrain from deciding exactly how grateful he is until he hears who he’s going to be working for. Thank God Moran is not in this department.

‘Richard Allenby has kindly consented to take you on,’ Whitman informs him, by which he means the man had no say in the matter whatsoever. ‘You are to report to his office on the floor below immediately. Good day.’

Mycroft murmurs his thanks once again, although he is sure that Whitman has almost instantly forgotten about his presence in the room, and leaves the office, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Allenby. He can do this. His plans for further bills are going to have to be put on the backburner for an indeterminate period of time, but Mycroft is not stupid enough to turn down this opportunity, despite the amount of hateful skivvying it will doubtlessly entail. He can remain within the government, which is more than he had dared to let himself hope for. He knows his new boss by both sight and reputation, and while it’s true that the man is no Millfield, he’s no tyrant either. Not an active supporter of nought rights, but not a campaigner against them either. Strict but, from what he’s overheard within the department, ruthlessly fair. Mycroft suspects he’ll be treated as any underling of Allenby’s would be treated, nought or Cross. He can work with that. Isn’t that what he’s working towards, after all?

***

_‘Today it has been announced that politician and staunch nought rights supporter James Millfield was found dead three days ago in his government office. The police have chosen to keep this information from the public until such a time as they could formally confirm the circumstances surrounding his death, but now feel in a position to state that it is suspected that Millfield, who was heavily involved in the latest three bills concerning nought rights to be passed by the government, committed suicide. The police are not seeking anyone else in relation to this incident, and his family have offered no statement at this time.’_

‘Turn that up,’ Sherlock says sharply.

‘Alright, alright, you only have to ask,’ John grumbles good naturedly, reaching for the dial on the radio.

‘Shut up,’ Sherlock snaps.

_‘Now, there’s trouble ahead for the England football team this weekend, or so it appears…’_

‘Dammit,’ Sherlock almost snarls as John flicks the switch, feeling decidedly uninterested in football.

John frowns. Sherlock never normally pays the slightest amount of attention to the news, declaring it boring at every possible opportunity and mocking John ceaselessly for showing any amount of interest.

‘What was that all about?’ he asks mildly.

‘This is bad,’ Sherlock replies grimly. ‘Very bad.’

‘What, because some stuffy Cross has gone and topped himself?’ John snorts. ‘He might have been a supporter, but he was still a politician and they’re all at least a little shady if you ask me. He wasn’t the only one, anyway, he can’t have been. There’ll be others like him who want to help us.’

‘It wasn’t suicide,’ Sherlock says. ‘Of course it wasn’t suicide. Someone wanted him out of the way.’

‘Moriarty?’ John frowns. ‘Could it be him?’

‘No,’ Sherlock replies blankly. ‘The style is far too obvious for Moriarty. He’s much more subtle. If Moriarty wanted Millfield out of the way then he’d destroy his reputation, which, let’s face it, wouldn’t take much seeing as Millfield was such a supporter of nought rights. There must have been a number of people who wanted him out of the way. I doubt we’ll ever know who it was. They’ll certainly never convict anyone.’

‘Still could have been Moriarty,’ John persists. ‘He could have been, I don’t know, trying out something new.’

‘There’s no reason for Moriarty to want Millfield dead,’ Sherlock says, rolling his eyes as if it’s all so obvious. ‘He has never had anything to do with Millfield. Millfield didn’t impact on his plans or his power plays in any way.’

‘But it was definitely murder?’ checks John. ‘You’re sure about that?’

‘It was more than that,’ Sherlock says ominously. ‘It was an assassination.’

‘Well,’ says John, when he can speak. ‘That’s not good, obviously, but what is so - ’

‘He was Mycroft’s boss,’ Sherlock interrupts him bleakly.

Oh.


End file.
